


Faith and family

by liverose



Series: The times between [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Banter, Bees, Biting, Blindfolds, Bonfires, Candy, Chair Sex, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Dialogue Heavy, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Baggage, Established Relationship, F/M, Festivals, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Hunters & Hunting, Injury, Insecure Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Kissing, Light Bondage, Monster of the Week, Monsters, Partying, Prayer, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Sacrifice, Sarcasm, Smut, Talking To Dead People, Trust Kink, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28624494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liverose/pseuds/liverose
Summary: -AKA that time Geralt killed a god-Respect doesn't make history. Facts don't feed your family. With winter on it's way Geralt has to take a job that's more mystery than monster to make sure he can still provide in the way he feels he should. There are repercussions for compromising one's morals spiting someone's gods.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The times between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146137
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. hunting the hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This can be read independently from the rest of my monster series (takes place within my time leap in changing tides). If you want / have the time you can read the rest for more context when it comes to my oc and her relationship with Geralt and Jaskier but it us not required reading. In a nutshell she is an mutated empath from Skellige and is in an established relationship with Geralt.

"Geralt?!" It had been a bad idea the witcher surmised as he stood from his waiting spot, to let the bard go alone. He'd just seemed to eager to try it himself, had goaded the witcher, made it a challenge, stated the first one to a buck won, there were no buck for miles and Geralt already knew that. Geralt had been a sport though, gave him a head start, hadn't even been hunting, just sitting and enjoying the silence, but that moment had past, it was no longer silent, the bard was screaming bloody murder. "Ahhhh! Hell spawn the lot- Ow! Fuckers! Ow! Leave-"  
"Jaskier?!" He didn't smell blood, he also didn't smell any beasts, he smelled Jaskier and the cologne he'd used the last of the night prior in lieu of a bath. Honeysuckle but too much, the flower was light, shouldn't be overwhelming but the bard did all things in excess. "What-" He could hear the bard pushing at bushes trees and any rouge root daring to be in his way, he was moving, running. The witcher started his way towards the commotion.  
"Save yourself Geralt! Go! Tell my story! Actually no you're awful with stories have- Ow! For fuck's sake! Have Anima do it! Break Valdo's lute that can be you memorium to my act of sac-"  
"You idiot what are you-" So Jaskier wasn't actually dying, or really even being attacked to the point it took his ability to form _all_ the words. What was with the theatrics? Jaskier had been making a dignified effort to be less . . . Dramatic when Geralt brought them hunting, knowing it was meant to be a moment for the witcher, something quiet, something calm. The bard ran full force into the witcher's chest. "Jaskier?" He didn't look hurt. Was there a spectre beyond the witcher's vision tormenting the bard. "Wait." There was something that stood out visualy, it was something not in front of his eyes but missing. "Where the hell is your chemise?" The bard hadn't left topless, yet here he was.  
"They're coming Geralt! We have to go! I will explain all-" The bard was winding into another sprint.  
"Now." Geralt had Jaskier by the hair holding the man in place. "What-" Then Geralt felt it, not a pain but something agitated his skin, then another, and another. "The fuck did you do?!" The witcher's eyes caught what had swarmed in behind the bard. "How many are there?"

There were tasks to be done, tasks that had been avoided, tasks the men would continue to ignore till every last seem tore on trousers and the strand holding Roach's bridle finally snapped. Perhaps ignore was the wrong word, Geralt knew none of them to be seamstresses or saddlers, and he preferred jobs to be done right, they just hadn't had the coin lately. Geralt had been going hunting to fill the time more and more lately and while she would have gone with him and Jaskier she decided to decline, each time trying her hand with a needle, little by little patching up their road wares. "Fuck!" She had not grown a passion for patchwork though, pricking her fingers or stitching too tight and having to undo all her work.  
"Whose there?" That was odd, they were miles from any town if her map was to be believed and that wasn't Geralt or Jaskier.  
"My name's Anima." She couldn't get eyes on this person but that didn't mean she couldn't see him, for a blink the world went white and then back into focus. _'A human.'_ She scooted back a bit, closer to the center of camp. "We're just passing through." It was a true statement just no one to date ever chose to hear it.  
"We? Who are you here with?" Anima wasn't sure if this was a poor lost traveler or a scout for a team of bandits, they sounded round abouts the same to her. She could try to muck about with his emotions, his wants and needs but she wanted to finish this cross stitch before she had an aneurysm and died. "Matters not. Turn around."  
 _'Turn around?'_ Being told to turn around was either very good or very bad for business. "Trouble ahead? If it's got scales or fangs you may be in luck-" Anima grinned and tried to look as friendly as possible as the man emerged from the tree line. He had no such smile, his face was long and deeply conflicted.  
"Used to be had luck on our side. Not any longer, we've upset the gods."  
"Oh." Well Geralt did have experience with dueling gods and their favor, he didn't have much a taste for it but they had gone long without him finding a contract, he might be swayed if the pay was decent. _'What does one charge for challenging a god?'_ She stared harder at this forlorn man, there was something wrong. "Well perhaps my friends and I can help. Why don't you tell me about your god troubles?"  
"Do you mock me?"  
"You'd either very much would, or very much wouldn't know if I was mocking you. I cannot turn back nor go forward till my friends return. You look like you have something weighing at you." She was falling back on old conversation skills, being vauge and waiting for information, humans when given air would talk. "I have two perfectly fine ears." He explained how the town had a god all their own, how was that for luck, it was an amiable God, one who liked drinks and girls and mirth, what more could they ask for?  
"What _did_ you ask for?" While she'd allow him to paint the story she really wished he'd get to the problem instead of explaining how rosey things had been in days of yore.  
"It's what we . . . He made a request I couldn't answer."  
"A request of you? Specifically?" Not to defame but the man seemed remarkablely unremarkable, didn't look like a God's chosen champion. _'Though gods are weird like that.'_ She recalled that she had once been a surprising champion candidate.  
"I make all the furniture in town." He stated and to Anima's credit she didn't laugh or reply unthoughtfuly with a dumb huh.  
"Did he need it made out of troll tears? Or ask for it to be so beautiful you went blind?" Gods tended to ask not for an inch but a mile when it came to signs of devotion.  
"No." He chose this moment to grow quiet.  
"Then-"  
"He supplied the mater . . . It was their bones. . . For a bed." The last part came out as a whisper.  
"Whose bones?"  
"Our . . . The daughters we sent to him."  
"Oh."  
"That's all you have to say?" The man wanted a reaction he didn't look to care if it was understanding or judgment, just something.  
"I don't _have_ to say anything and nothing I utter will turn back time." Again she staid open and neutral not stating if his lack of action was the right or wrong move. It wasn’t her place to have an opinion. But in the back of her head she just chalked it up as another example of humanity continuing to show it's colors. Why did humans even _have_ children? Only to use as currency to pay the gods? As building material to make their weapons? This wasn't sustainable, their kind was booming now but for how many generations? How did any manage to get to adulthood?  
"He refuses to give us an audience, burns anyone alive who goes to speak with him. We want to be back in his favor but he denies us."  
"Must really feel you need a god." No wonder Geralt spoke so little on the job, neutral actions were easier than finding neutral words. They wanted to be in good graces with the God who wished to sleep on the bones of their daughters?  
"Your friends . . . They deal with fangs and scales . . . What about fire? If they got through the flames they could speak on our behalf, we will do whatever he asks to prove our fidelity."  
"Well . . ." As far as she knew Geralt didn't have an flame retardant mutagen. "We are a band of professionals I assure you. Well honed specialists you could-"

"Anima build a fire! Brew a potion! Do something damnit!!" Jaskier ran back into camp stumbling off a boot, the only thing left on outside of his smalls. He didn't even acknowledge . . .anything until he poured an entire water skin over his head "Oh! Hello! Geralt we have a guest!" He did not cover or cower, merely waved before pouring Anima's water skin down the back of his breeches.  
"That's yours now. We're trading." Anima and Jaskier swapped repulsed faces with one another until the man witnessing the exchange cleared his throat.  
"Good sir do you know any colloquial remedies for bees?" Jaskier stayed casual as anyone could ever hope to be.  
"Bees?!" Anima laughed.  
"This your professional?" The man chuckled but more uncomfortable than amused.  
"Jaskier did you have to throw your trousers _up_ a tree?" Geralt did not run, he walked, fully annoyed, hands full of all the bard's discarded clothing as well as his own chest armor and blades.  
"You said they were chasing my scent I was trying to get them off our trail! You're welcome! Anima do you have any honey?"  
"I should have a bit left in my-" She went about rooting through an ever lighter pack.  
"Honey won't help. Less you want ants to join the feast." Geralt dropped everything to swat at his neck.  
"Geralt honey for bee stings is a tried and tested-"  
"Wasps." Geralt inspected the insect in his palm. "Vinager not honey if you're to be dunked in anything."  
"Bees, wasps, sawflies what's the difference? A sting is a sting is a-"  
"Bees stop stinging. One and done. Wasps hold grudges. Chase." Geralt's eyes fell on the human but as he was stung again he went about relighting the fire in the center of camp with igni. "Any trash notes old notices? Expired herbs? Smoke will help." He sat down, trying to look preoccupied, not letting it show that the stranger in his camp was more alarming than the stray stings.  
" _That's_ my specialist." Anima beamed and Jaskier rolled his eyes at the over done disection of his clearly hypothetical question.  
"A witcher." The man looked spooked, then contemplative, then resigned. "Have you ever spoken to a god witcher?"  
"I-" He looked to Anima with confusion in his face. "Have."  
"Not in prayer I mean-"  
"I do not pray." He gave a humm of appreciation as Anima placed lavender on the flames. _'Lavender doesn't go bad.'_ She was doing it to calm them. He'd returned more cantankerous than he had left, this helped, his shoulders fell slightly at the scent.  
"That trick you just did with the flames would that work-"  
"What is with the questions? I've already been cursed a muse once I won't-"  
"Hey!" Jaskier splashed some viniger at the witcher.  
"Hmm." And there went the calming effects of lavender. "Anima who is this and why is he here?" He'd speak to someone who answered plainly when asked, he was in a growing mood and not a patient one.  
"He is a man that may have a job for you. Isn't that right?"  
"A job?" Geralt was listening but not enthused, matters of faith were not normally something witchers dealt well with.  
"We have upset our god."  
"Good for you." Geralt was scratching at a bite on his arm. "Gods are assholes."  
"No we . . . Plain and simple witcher can you speak to him. Ask what we can do to get his forgiveness? He burns those that approach-"  
"It's not a god." Geralt continued to scratch, not looking at the man too directly.  
"What is it a wasp?" The man stood, feeling he was wasting his time with the trio. "You stooges come running with your balls out from the brush and try to school me on-"  
"Does it sting?" Geralt snorted as he bit at a cluster of itch. "Anima has over sold my skills. Swords, silver and steel, conversations are not what I specialize-" Geralt stopped as his eyes caught on Anima's busy work, one of his tunics in her lap, a needle and thread hanging loose. He then looked at Jaskier, bare bitten and his cheeks seemed more hollow than usual. The witcher needed to swallow some pride, some of his preference, he _did_ need work. "Hmm." He let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes for a moment. The viniger, the itches, the prospect of gods, it was as if this moment was built not to be threatening just endlessly bothersome. "This town of yours have beds?" He didn't quite understand why the man tensed at that. Maybe this man could grovel but still be a bigot, not want a mutant in their walls. Geralt's teeth ground, could he concede even more pride? He needed work. "I will-"  
"If you won't speak will you just get close enough to see if there are any left living? The bones he sent . . . Didn't count for all. Some might still-"  
"Bones are more my business. I will look for yours if you look after mine. They need a meal, a bed. I will stay outside your border if-"  
"No." Anima blew some air into the fire, watching the smoke plume. "Sir I listened to your dead man's tale. I would-"  
"Dead man?" The traveler's eyes grew large.  
"You came here to kill yourself didn't you? That _is_ a dagger in your pocket you were not just happy to see me." Empath or not he read of desperation and sadness from his very core.  
"You knew? What . . . From the beginning? You didn't try to stop-" She knew people, knew emotions, she didn't need the void to see hurt that glowing and _he_ didn't need to be told how to feel.  
"As I said we are professionals, specialists, a group of such. I'd like for us to help you. Geralt knows fire and flesh, a witcher, I can figure out what your God wants, an empath, Jaskier's got words that can make a statue smile, a poet. We can address whatever it is that haunts you. What I cannot allow is for Geralt to be treated like a hunting hound."  
"Anima it's alright." Geralt would be uncomfortable but he could deal, they needed this job.  
"All or none of us." The witcher found himself outnumbered as the bard piped in. It was poor timed rebellion and not in the slightest bit practical but the corner of his face twitched up in appreciation for the sentiment.  
"Room and board is not an outlandish request, especially if it is an angry God you'd have us deal with." Anima had explained it as plainly as she could. "Take us into town? We'll investigate it in the morning?"  
"Her name's Yalleve. My daughter." The man stood and nodded.  
"A pretty name." Jaskier noted.  
"A pretty girl." The man nodded again. "You'll try to save her witcher?" He questioned as the group broke down camp.  
 _'The girl's long dead.'_ Geralt was in a contract mind set, already trying to figure out what he was up against. "I will look for her."  
"Anima was it?" It wasn't long till they were moving towards a mildly over grown trail.  
"Yes."  
"Thank you for . . . I hadn't saw another answer. You pushed without pushing it was-"  
"She does that." Geralt sometimes forgot Anima had more subtle skills, it wasn't always tethers and plane jumping, it was sometimes like this, Anima wanting and needing for those who couldn't do so. He rode close on Anima's heels, Roach caught the hint, nosed at her back.  
"You're welcome Geralt." Anima smiled back at him. She had done it not only for the man but the witcher as well. She reminded him that they couldn't live on his ego, he had to take a job that didn't thrill him but also reminded him that he wasn't _just_ his work, he was also a person and no meal was worth compromising that.

"I'm sorry Geralt." They were laying in bed, with a full stomach, Geralt couldn't understand what she was apologizing for.  
"Hmm? Found us work, got us housing, made something for Jaskier so he stopped scratching his back on the blacksmiths grindstone. What more could you have done?"  
"Waited till you returned before offering your services. You're weary of this job."  
"Won't end well." Geralt wouldn't pretend he was optimistic. He glanced down and noticed she looked maybe a bit sad if he was getting better with Anima's subtle faces as he thought. "Doesn't have to. Just has to pay." He kissed the top of her head. "You ate crow first." He shouldn't have smiled but her somewhat surprised blink up at him meant he was right, he _was_ getting better at her subtle faces.  
"Made me wonder . . . And that was dumb." Anima's face scrunched annoyed and Geralt chuckled but kept on point.  
"Wonder?"  
"If maybe my father was like him . . . You know regretted it? Regret doesn't change anything but-"  
"It does not. Perhaps he does . . . Though how that has any bearing on you I fail to see." He pulled her up to his face, smiling as her nose bopped into his own, but Geralt, resident face expert, knew it to be a mask, sometimes her smiles twisted worse than her frowns. "Let him have his regrets . . . Or let him have no weight on his conscious. You have people to make up for his mistakes, you don't need him."  
"You're right. Wasted energy."  
"I often am. You are still warranted to be sad. Yet if you'd allow I'd show you how much _I_ care for you. How I will not skirt my duties to treat you well, I will never discard you Anima, never trade or-"  
"Geralt I know that." She never thought she'd have to lean in and kiss him to make him _stop_ talking. He looked at her for a moment as if he was searching for still more words.

So she didn't need convincing, what was it he could do to have her smile? "If our travels ever take us to Skellige you can ask him yourself about his regrets." Still more pondering. "Whatever his answer may be it's my humble advice to sock him straight in the jaw."  
"You sound like Lambert." Anima laughed finally and fully. She needed him to be lavender, a puff of calming smoke, nothing would undo the sting of being sold but he could give her something pleasant to make her feel a bit more comfortable in her own skin.  
"Take that back!" With an amused growl he turned her under him.  
"Make me!" This smile was genuine, believing and warm as they squirmed and shifted out of sleepwear.

Perhaps it was being compared to Lambert or perhaps because they had just casual referenced that Anima's bones could be a bed post and her birth father would be none the wiser yet Geralt surprised her with the tempo he took, normally when granted the high ground it was fast and aggressive with foreplay a far and away thought, yet he was slow to move. "Geralt?"  
"Hmm?" He grabbed her one wrist, kissing at the inside then stared at for a moment.  
"It was just a passing thought. I'm fine." She worried this was headed past comfort to coddling and that was a place neither of the hung in well.  
"Yes." He could have been more illuminating but he opted against it, instead he simply pinned the wrist above her head. He repeated the action with the other till both her hands were caught in one of his.  
"If you wanted them the scarves are in my-"  
" _I_ have you." The words sounded dark, as if she was some sort of captive. His hand clenched holding her all the more deftly as he laid kisses down her neck, let his face get rained on by ruby red hair. "You're-" He had already used all his words so he grunted as he ditched the sentence. He kissed as far down as his reach would comfortably allow for then returned to her lips. His free hand strumming wide along her skin.  
"Even I may not have guessed it you know?" She was speaking because she knew him to enjoy the climb in her voice but it was a bit difficult in between kisses.  
"What's that?" Wanting the sound of her he gave her room to speak, nipping at the bolt of her jaw.  
"You've really come around on-" She gave a sigh of a laugh as his hand found more sensitive pastures. "Heavy petting Geralt."  
"Hmm." Maybe at being outed or perhaps because even witchers only had so much self restraint he entered her, the hold on her wrists getting harder, never to the point of bruising yet close. It was slow, not in a teasing way, the couple loved to hang over edges but that wasn't what this was.  
"Only goes so deep." Anima's face was red, her chuckle was huffed both heated and vulnerable.  
"Have you, _all_ of you." The words again sounded dark sounded swallowing and possessive but that's not what Anima heard. _'Won't leave you, none of you is unwelcomed.'_ Just as slow out as in, this wasn't even soft sex this was something different, something deeper in every way of the word as his hips kept at that pace for a few moments, his whole body cloaking over hers.  
"Geralt please, I appreciate the gentle-"  
"Not gentle." His voice was a bit strangled, a slow pace did not mean an easy one, Geralt wanted desperately to move. "Greedy." It was a lesson via actions, for Anima. "We have time." she was valued, apreciated, and Geralt would appreciate her for minutes, hours and days on days.  
"Yes but we are also blessed with stamina Geralt." Anima saw Geralt's grin widen, the hand at her side grip firm, his own hips jerked at the prospect, pushing a gasp out of her as he did so. "Geralt!"  
"You could let me win one of these times." He nearly snarled but there was too much smirk for it to ring true as he found far more ease with fluid firm thrusts.  
"Let you . . .Gods Geralt!" Slow had been torture for the witcher who had gone months without a bed that didn't threaten to crack under their weight. "I'd never sell you so short. You're never given a win."  
"Never." No longer dark yet his words held some of the tension from the day. Worries that travel had been lean and tiresome.  
"You earn them." She always found a way to coo, always found better words, even when Geralt tried to form speeches, in beds or debates gone long, she always won.  
"Try." That word was never angry nor dark, always loose, always pleased, it was Geralt going from out in the wilds where trying wasn't good enough, to a wonderful headspace she granted him that trying was all that mattered.  
"You always try for me love, always-" It was close, nearly too much doting and they both knew it, they found an edge where there wasn't any. Geralt was trying to keep those words from forming, from beating him, he was moving to knock them straight from her lips with heavier bucks and thrusts but that only made her want to praise him further. "Darling-" Geralt growled in lieu of a purr at the endearment, at the tease. It dissolved into some ridiculous game. "My Vildkarl you-" More effort, more motions. Deeper, chasing after and grunting unswayed in equal measure, he wanted more, to give more. They had been roughing it, the last few months hadn't been good, better, best, he could make up for that, he could try. "A buried treasure is what you are. How lucky of me to find you." She rode out release with a line their bard would have appreciated.  
"Dug." Geralt was not a poet nor did he always make love like one, he had let go of her wrists turning and lifting her till he was at her from behind, rooting his hand in her hair, soft was long gone, he was in for depth, in for satisfaction and sounds, louder more pleased sounds.  
"D . . . Dug?" Anima could out word Geralt if she could form words. She was arching her back, bending and bowing into him, she didn't really care much for words in the moment.  
"Don't trip over burried treasure you dig for it." He was digging, tunneling and what he got was gold. It wasn’t Anima at her loudest, actually it was fairly quiet, almost a bit broken but it was something akin to quality over quantity.  
"Geralt . . . Geralt . . . Geralt." She just kept panting his name, not fully lost but wonderfully spinning in place.  
"Anima." He groaned deeply, his name convinced him what other titles hadn't, he was still and always would be enough. Yet he focused for a moment, it didn't go both ways, Anima didn't get that same satisfaction over hearing her own name. "Have you." He bit into her shoulder, holding his place, she wasn't alone, he wouldn't leave her.  
"Geralt!"  
"Here." It was groaned into her flesh. They slammed full force into release. Geralt no longer worried of his weight smothering, crushing, he had it down to a science, splaying out his heft on forearms but letting his chest blanket over her. "Got you." Geralt hummed almost happy.

  
"How early do we have to be up tomorrow?" Anima was still getting her breath back.  
"Early." It would be a long day, an exhausting day. "I'll need your help."  
"My help? My experience with cranky gods?" He could feel her fingers running along his back. While he was convinced he'd had the ability to be tickled scorched out of him, it felt nice, like pattering rain on his skin. He rolled over, taking her along for the ride, till she was nestled in at his chest.  
"Trickier." Her fingers moved to his ears, caressing at their shells, they had gone full circle, all the way back to soft to a touch only she knew him to want. "Your experience with humans. Hear what they need not what they want. They want me to . . . It's not a god." His mind went back to the contract but his head was better, less clutered with woes of under delivering. She had allowed and apreciated his actions that weren't apologies, so much as rewards for sticking with him when the going got rough. "Might hear more words that make you wonder but-"  
"I can handle-"  
"If it becomes too much. Anima tell-" Geralt tried to mimic her touch, Anima _was_ ticklish, he wanted to hear her laugh.  
"You bleed."  
"Huh?" He frowned but only for a moment, blood was not an amusing topic yet Anima must not even hear her _own_ words the way they were said. He succeeded, her face twitched humored by his touch.  
"Can handle blood loss, skin treated and scared strong, doesn't mean you _like_ it. Yet to do your job, hunt the monsters, you bleed." She paused to see if he understood.  
"To do _your_ job?" He was learning her subtle faces, her words were still a bit obtuse and likely would always be, they were like signs, a bit of chaos made into something convenient and casual.  
"I am warranted to be sad. I _heard_ you Geralt. I likely will and won't like it. Sad is an emotion, my wheelhouse. I am built-" Anima saw recognition and better yet a plan fold solidly into Geralt's face. "What bright idea has you knowing so swarthy?"  
"Hmm." He smirked at the praise still hitting as a tease. "I wear armor, take potions . . . You've been mending and mixing them both, helps with the bleeding. My turn." He kissed her with promise, with purpose. "Even if we must wake early." He liked pleasing her, would do so simply to have her cry his name, to have her cuddle and fall into him safe and cared for afterwards, to be someone sought after for comfort carnal and cozy that was _more_ than enough. Giving it a tactile purpose though, giving her a buffer of good emotions against any bad the day would pry from her, made the practical witcher all the more settled into a goal.  
"Good thing we've got that stamina then." Anima kissed him back more playful than purposeful.  
"Hmm." He seemed to come to a decision.  
"What?"  
"Want you to sleep."  
"Well then you are sending quite the mixed-" Her mouth was kissed into a pause. "Message."  
"Want you so tired you sleep." He clarified, he'd done it before, had found quite the calling in such a feat. "Sleep, knowing I'll be here when you wake up."  
"Because you'll be too tired to leave? It _has_ been a while since you've snuck from my bed to beat the sun to the path."  
"Have more stamina than you Anima." He licked a stripe along her neck. "Will be here because I _want_ to be. I don't _like_ to bleed, you don't _like_ those more useless emotions, we will do things we don't enjoy tomorrow." He wouldn't allow harm to befall them but it would be a very . . . Faith heavy day, it would be rough on those that didn't abide nor find comfort in such practices. "Can enjoy now."  
"Well that didn't contain enough curses for me to confuse you with Lambert." She paused just to hear the mildly annoyed growl. "Though is it you Geralt?" She gave him a sarcastic squint.  
"Me?" He had slunk further palms full of hips, mouth hovering moderately impatient over a spot to steal her words. "You allow others so close before questioning?"  
"You. Geralt of Rivia, the stoic white wolf speaking of enjoying so freely?" It wasn't a tease, wasn't proving at his witcher code. There was a simple pleased smile, a praise, maybe even a relief in her voice.  
 _'Has a purpose.'_ That's what made it easy when all other times it had been a such chore. _'For you.'_ Which made it important. "Yes." Was the answer. He had to rationalize it, give it weight but that was the answer plain and simple. Tomorrow they meddled with gods or at the very least the belief in them, they could use all the plain and simple they could get.


	2. This is Samhain

"So does it have a name?" Geralt had just bothered to ask the man's own moments ago, Severi.  
"What did you just say?" Severi's wife, Daci, he'd caught her name is passing, slid his breakfast plate away from him. Geralt looked up from it's previous spot trying to hold back a sneer. It really wasn't wise to nab a witcher's food but it had been her's first to offer so he blinked back the bother.  
"Does it have a name? Or is it simply some wise one? Holy being, undying flame?" Even if it _had_ been a god Geralt's reverence for such beings was small to non existent.  
"It?" There was fire in the woman's eyes Geralt had no taste for. It was nothing new. People too proud or in outright denial that they needed help. There was no way a mutant could understand their world better than they did. He didn't like this song and dance but there was nothing _about_ this contract he liked.  
"Hmm." He knew he was monotone but he didn't think she hadn't heard him. "The . . . God." Maybe he had been too vauge?  
"Only those who show him the proper respect should be given the privilege to say his name. Likely trip over those fangs of yours."  
"Hmm." It was going to start here, in this home, having to use those 'fangs' to bite his tongue, not lie but omit. He _had_ no respect for this creature but voicing that would just make his job harder. "Where does i . . ." Geralt wouldn't bicker, the witcher didn't need it's country of origin and favorite autumn perennial.  
"He." Jaskier was across from him, giving Geralt eyes to try harder in the matter of words, humans cared about words, really gave them weight.  
"He." It might've taken the sentiment out of it with the sigh that followed. "N. . ." He almost said nest but Jaskier started shaking his head vigorisly, Geralt wasn't an idiot he saw his mistake, gods don't nest they . . . Oversee or ordane, perhaps rule. It was just an easy folly to make. He knew monsters, spoke and traded in monsters, this _was_ a monster, it was habit to speak in facts not in fantasy. "Reside?" That would do, if they could just give him that he could go about setting things right.  
"Severi you've upset him enough. Get these heathens out of my home! They will do nothing but upset him further. You have skirted your manly duties onto monsters and that cannot stand!"  
_'He picked the bones of your daughters!'_ Geralt kept his mouth shut. They'd gotten a day's sleep, a meal and a half, he looked longingly at ham he could have finished by now. If these people didn't think he was worthy to help him why was it his job to prove them wrong? _'Because that is the job.'_ He could hear Vesemir telling him to straighten out of his slouch, be the bigger man, be above morals and motives, be better and work harder.  
"We want to help. Do not view Geralt's directness as disrespect. We travel far and wide to right the imbalance between those holy and naught" Jaskier wasn't a morning person but as he dashed to finish his own breakfast, he worked his charm to keep them employed.  
"Even if we did know-" Daci squinted at the bard. Maybe it was the ham on his breath but he was laying it on a bit rich.  
"So you don't?" Geralt grumbled. Just once a contract with a map and an etching of the beast would be nice.  
"Only those of the daoine sidhe-" Severi tried to get a word in.  
"Fairies?" Geralt's intrest piqued, finally something that existed, that interest would be short lived.  
"Humans with features like the Sidhe were the ones allowed to speak to Áillen. But-"  
"My eyes aren't the right almond shape." Daci pouted and it took all of Geralt's self restraint not to grimace at her vanity and ego. Was she even bothered her town had been ravaged? Or was she simply insulted this god hadn't seen _her_ fit to debone?  
"It _does_ have a name." Geralt was a decent listener even when the topic was a tedious slog.  
"The harpist?" Everyone stopped and looked over at Jaskier confused. "Prob . . . Likely not the same Áillen, went to university with . . . Played like a. . . Nevermind go on with it." Jaskier wanted to prove he knew things too but perhaps not all knowledge was helpful knowledge.  
"All but one were . . . Seen to have lost their way." Severi shrugged.  
"Killed." Geralt nodded. "The one who isn't dead?" Gods it took them this long just to get to the vaugest clue?  
"Has gone off to absolve in solitude."  
"Hiding." Geralt ran a hand down an already exhausted face. "Great." He now would have to ask where they were last seen and hope it didn't take till supper to get a straight answer.  
"Shame it isn't later in the month." Severi seemed to be pondering half an idea but that was as useful to Geralt as a shoe without a sole.  
"Why?" The witcher already regretted this question.  
"If it was Samhain-"  
"It's a day that the worlds between the living and the dead-"  
"I know Samhain Geralt, they do teach things outside of Kaer Morhen. I have degrees Geralt! Plural!" He waited for an apology but accepted the witcher's nod and scolded sneer as close enough. "Mumming, bonfires, food drink. Songs. It was made for me. Hop-tu-naa! put in the pot.  
Hop-tu-naa! put in the pan.  
Hop-tu-naa! I burnt me throt" Jaskier's palms were slamming into the table a rowdy childlike grin on his face. "Hop-tu-naa! guess where I ran?  
Hop-tu-naa! I ran to the well.  
Hop-tu-naa! and drank my fill." The husband and wife were clapping along. Geralt was listening to his stomach grumble, staring at his breakfast running cold.  
"Hop-tu-naa! and on the way back.  
Hop-tu-naa! I met a witch cat."  
"Shame." Geralt prodded an ear gone numb to the word hop. "That we'll miss . . . That."  
"Could wait till then? Gods willing the dead will be granted voice."  
"Save yourself a festival. Blindfold me and throw me in the woods, find your hiding fairy folk in the less time." Geralt pulled his breakfast back as the humans got distracted on a plan of what ifs.

  
"You know the dead care very little of dates." Anima had been roused by all the hopping, finally entering the kitchen. "Least any close enough to reach. They're stuck in a place that time doesn't . . . Guess it exists but it doesn't mean much."  
"You look good and. . . Rested." Jaskier chuckled, eyebrows raising.  
"Nothing like a good rest." Anima stretched no hint of a blush in her cheeks.  
"And what do you know of the dead and their cares? Those the eyes of a stiff un?" This woman atleast disliked all of them for unique reasons. She hated Geralt for his sacrilegious inclination, Jaskier for being hammy and unrepentant and she hated Anima for her eyes, wehter it be their mutated white irises or their enviable almond shape was anyone's guess.  
"Curse?" Jaskier's eyes lit up, which was bad news Geralt figured but while the wolf could outdraw a scorpion in a race to arms, he had never been the fastest to form words. "Now it is time for _you_ to show some respect good lady-"  
"Jaskier lets not-" Anima knew exactly where the bard was headed, it was a gamble for credibility and trust, she would get on board she'd just like to get something in her stomach first, shake out her bed head.  
"No you don't get the credit you deserve Anima. Your _town_ holds a god? _Anima_ held a god. She was burdened to be the only ears pert enough to hear, eyes taintless enough to see-"  
"You?" Daci sucked her tongue against her teeth.  
"Ta _Da_." Anima smiled as she took a seat. _'Maybe that'll take the glow off gods.'_ She plucked the toast off Jaskier's plate, messy with butter and jam it sure woke her up. "I feel we're off topic. You were saying something of the dead Jaskier?"  
"There's still one alive. No need to pester the parted." Geralt grumbled, he wasn't used to his contracts being such communal affairs. He was feeling a bit stifled, he'd been planted in a town for half a day and he wanted to be up, out, moving, so he stood.  
"We could do both. Twice the better." Anima went about stealing Geralt's toast, bone dry and bland but it worked to fill her, keep her satsfied.  
"And we would do that _because_?"  
"Because _you_ need information and _I_ need to get my reach back." Anima reminded Geralt that his abilities weren't the only ones under used as of late.  
"We can do soup to nuts though right? Should honor the gods. Especially if we're asking for an early audience." Jaskier was using his skills to wager for fuller meals, spirits, dare he say a good time. More than that, the bard was laying a plan all his own, Geralt would never be god fearing, Anima was the embodiment of vices, he had to hold control of the narrative, had to win this town over, of all things Jaskier had to give the illusion of piety. He knew more than the name of the first chair harpist in Oxenfurt, he knew what religion did for and to humans, he had to protect his family from the fire.  
"Wise." Severi nodded.  
"Fine." Geralt was at the door. Gods he could bare, gods and a carnival he had not the patience. "Where was the missing chosen seen last?" Geralt did apreciate what Jaskier was offering, a distraction, the bard would entertain and indulge the humans, giving Geralt room to snoop and solve without having to make sure he didn't utter something disrespectful.  
"Her home."  
"Which _is_?" Did every question have to be stretched.  
"Hinse lived next to the alchemist hut." Finally a straight forward answer.  
"Anima . . . You need ingredients for your potion?" Geralt wanted a word with her before he was off.  
"Wouldn't mind taking a look at their wears. You going to eat that toast?" Anima eyed Daci's plate.  
"What . . . Sort of god was in you?" Daci was holding up her plate. "A . . . Vengeful one?"  
"All gods are vengeful, so are all men, just matters the mood you catch them in." Anima grabbed the toast, third slice was a bit burnt, jam didn't mask the bitter taste it left in her mouth but it was toast and it was gone in a flash. She walked over to her witcher, slotting her fingers within his.

"Jaskier stole my job, he's got them putty in his palms. I don't think Daci likes me much." Anima had light nearly carefree steps. Liked disliked it mattered very little to her. "Though I worry."  
"I won't be here Anima. Don't reach too far." Her ability left her blind, left her generally stuck in place. Geralt felt uneasy having her reach out, to the dead non the less, while he was out chasing fairy faced women and . . . It was frustrating to no end he had no idea what this god actually was.  
"Not that. I'll be fine, blood will cramp I'm sure but some butcher's broom and chickweed will keep it from sludging." Anima shrugged, her growing knowledge of potions did not just aid the witcher, they aided her abilities as well.  
"Do not linger Anima. You're testing your reach and putting on a show with the bard, you don't want to get lost there."  
"No." She stopped in place to tug him in for a kiss. "I don't want that." Her smile signaled perhaps Geralt was catastrophising again.  
"Yet you worry?" He retorted, it wasn't that his concerns were without merit.  
"I worry Jaskier will sell us _too_ well."  
"Hmm?"  
"She's testing my waters. Shopping for a new god. One that will cater to her needs."  
"All the toast and jam you can eat Anima." Geralt scoffed as he resumed their pace. "Why you prefer being hated over respected I'll-"  
"You have no room to talk. You _could_ speak as if you didn't see this god the same as you see a spriggan, you're _choosing_ not to Geralt, those were not your best table manners."  
"Hmm." It was true, slips of the tongue were one thing, his tone and visible disdain for this job weren't happenstance, it was how he felt and couldn't be bothered to hide. "Speak with the townsfolk before you try for the dead? See if any can speak to changes in the weather, men acting out of form or loss of livestock . . . Have better table manners than me?" She was better with words, hid in plain sight, did battle from the shadows, she was suited better for this nonsense.  
"You get off easy, chasing the scent of some old woman's socks? I must get elbow deep in the devout?" Better suited did not mean more keen.  
"I'll make it up after we get out of this town." He did shoot her a genuinely apologetic look.  
"All the toast and jam I can eat?"  
"Not getting a king's ransom Anima. I'll . . . A new book and your first round of stout."  
"Not enough."  
"No?" Geralt tried to scowl but he was intrigued, she wanted something, she so rarely was upfront with such requests, whatever it was he wanted to give it to her.  
"I want your eyes Geralt." It was unfair how words she said so casually buzzed around in his ears.  
"Hmm." It'd been a while since she'd blindfolded him in bed.  
"I want your attention Geralt."  
"You threaten to take it now Anima." His skin grew tight around curves. He stopped them outside the alchemist hut, looming over her and kissing her not quite lewd but a fair amount hungry.  
"Table manners Geralt." Yet she leaned in not away from his mouth. They were getting stares and while it worked Anima red, she lossened at the hand holding firm at her back. It worked Geralt wound, had his head split from annoyed to amorous.  
"If I wanted this done before." He pulled away before he ended up taking her behind said hut. A witcher needed no incentive to finish a task given to them outside of coin and their code, he had been paid in room and board, he would find and fix what tormented this town.  
"Then go get it done Geralt. We'll both be nursing a headache by day's end." What Anima wanted, what she was offering him was independent, removed, just for Geralt the man, she always made time, made requests of that small part of him because that was the part she valued, she loved, she aimed to keep. In times when contracts ground at him a request of the man in him eased some of the ache in his bones.

"Well fuck." He found the old woman's socks, found her boots and half a dress but all else was charred bones. "Hoof prints." Well that narrowed it down considerably, it wasn't likely a fiend or a chort, had to be something with the ability to speak and make outlandish demands of sacrifice. _'Could be an sylvan.'_ Though in his experience those creatures were more annoying than they were sadistic. He followed the prints to a cave. _'Doesn't dwell here.'_ This cave hadn't been a home for a better part of a year. It also was not the home of a sylvan, it was too . . . Romantic, Geralt wasn't exactly head over heels with the description but there was hung art and dried vases full of flowers, the rock reeked of deep red wine. _'An Incubi.'_ That's why the wife was more defensive than the husband, it was likely most the town women and some of it's eligible bachelors were under some vauge spell of it's charm. "Fuck." He had left Anima surrounded by punch drunk lust bound women and asked her to feel around and attach to their emotions. He had left Jaskier there, a man who would fall in love no arm twisting needed and fell in bed even faster. The trail he had followed here was a week old if not longer, he could linger and look for clues as to why it left, where it had relocated to. Or he could go make sure this pied piper hadn't snuck into town at the witcher's absence and gone about luring his family away. "Fuck." This was just getting worse, Geralt stomped back towards town. _'The bones though?'_ Incubi weren't intrinsically violent either. Geralt's teeth ground at the uncertainty, he knew what but he didn't know why and that was dangerous. Things would only get more confusing, only annoy the witcher more.

"You're wearing a dress." Geralt blinked long and hard at the bard who was donned in a garment too short for his long limbs, cutting awkwardly at the shin and forearm, too wide for his lithe hips, wisping a bit as Jaskier hefted benches round a circle built for a bonfire.  
"Those **eyes** of yours Geralt! Nothing gets by them! Tell me, be honest Anima said torqouise is my color but I was thinking something more commanding like a red or an orange." Jaskier had been day drinking, either that or he'd really gone heavy handed on the rouge at his cheeks.  
"Why?" Geralt didn't care if the bard wanted to look a clown, he certainly wasn't going for a true to form female illusion. Geralt just wanted to make sure there _was_ a reason, it wasn't that the bard was under some spell.  
"Samhain Geralt. It's a day that the worlds between the living and the dead." The bard mimicked the witcher's earlier dummed down explanation of the festival, placing hands on his hips as he spoke. "Mumming is part of the festival. You do know what mumming is don't you?"  
"Costumes." Geralt nodded. "The bucket?" He put the bard and his ridiculous slippers he'd crammed his feet into out of their misery, tugging the basin full of water over to it's proper place, even letting Jaskier dictate a little to the left and a little to the right three whole times before snapping. "Jaskier!"  
"Apple bobbing."  
"That's not a Samhain custom."  
"No but it is a fine way to show a fine lady your good with your mouth. See everyone a bit wet and wanting." Jaskier gave a pleased and proud wink.  
"This isn't a party Jaskier. Women are dead."  
"Geralt." Jaskier's voice broke from it's jovial tone. "Every job you take . . . There are losses." The bard gave a shrug. "Yet we eat and drink . . . You remember to smile now and again." This wasn't any different from any other job, the witcher just didn't like it's dressing and thus was more vocal about the dreeriness of it.  
"Some could still be alive and if I'm here-"  
"If you're here it's because you didn't find the clues you were looking for, or else you'd be a white knight of the woods somewhere." Jaskier threw his arms up in exhaustion.  
"I'm _here_ because I think I know what it is and it may come back to town."  
"Not with a witcher, teeth bared swords out like you are. So if it's to come, lay in waiting, blend in. If fun befalls you . . . There are worse things."  
"Hmm." Jaskier might have been drunk but he was also right. Incubi were skiddish to conflict, it wouldn't rise to a challenge it'd have to sprung on it.  
"Blending in is not my strong suit Jaskier." He couldn't just act as this made sense to him, dressing up, playing games, whispering to the dead by candlelight.  
"Mum it Geralt!" And the mirth was back in Jaskier's voice, helped that there was a bottle back in one hand a the waist of some woman charading as a mermaid in the other.  
"I'm not putting on a dress." Incubi did have horns, weilded fire, he'd gotten a swift kick from one before and without there being a well placed cup Geralt could very well have left that fight short a stone. "Mumming is one thing why is there so much-" Skin, so much bared flesh. It was well into autumn even Jaskier's knees had a little shake with the breeze.  
"To distinguish the dead from the living Geralt. For those whose blood still pumps! Now wait here I'll find you something!" Jaskier made an abrupt turn and left. Geralt hoped maybe if he wasn't right where the bard left him maybe the man's short attention span would work to the witcher's favor, he went in search of Anima, things did not get less confusing.

"I don't get it." He found her quickly as always but if he thought Jaskier in a dress was odd what he was looking at in the moment was just far and beyond him. She had some silly bonnet on, a monocle, a cane in one hand and the ugliest, yet to her credit matching, pair of muddy yellow tunic and trousers. "A aristocratic legume?" He was not a good guesser.  
"I'm the incomparable Sir Orzech thank you very much."  
"I have no idea who that is." Geralt tried to think, no adventurer or lord came to mind. "An alchemists?"  
"Finally!" Anima ran up and placed both hands on his cheeks to kiss him, cane thrown to the wayside.  
"Hmm." Deductive reasoning he could do. "Vauge costume."  
"Yes . . . It has lead to a lot of explaining" Anima scratched the back of her neck. "But it's an ice breaker! He's on the back of a few books I've . . . I didn't want my tits out and I've always wanted to wear a monocle alright?"  
"Makes as much sense as anything else." Geralt shrugged. Nothing made sense, this was stupid, down right pandemonium. "Still look like a peanut in a hat." He watched her roll her eyes. "An . . . Incomparable peanut in a hat." He tried being less miserable but as he watched a swarm of children run at them he was starting to believe he'd died, gone to hell and no one had the heart to tell him.  
"It's still out there." Geralt scanned his surroundings. "Burns them to their bones." The center of town was absolutely bustling. "This is reckless."  
"I have not forgotten why we're here. Geralt these people don't just love their God. They _love_ this god! Throw this over a branch for me?" She handed him a wicker basket with a cord round it's handle. Geralt looked down into it's contents, figs, chocolates, sugar cubes, bits of honeycombs, too many rasins for any one given town to need.  
"You haven't forgotten yet you're luring the children towards us Anima. They should be in their homes, safe, not running around in clothing bound with ribbons and tacks." He could see blending in with the adults, waiting for the incubus to appear, that almost warranted the risk. He was not going to use children as bait.  
"This time vinager is not the right approach. Trust me."  
"Hmm." Geralt did toss the basket over the branch, he did trust her. "What is this approach?"  
"Bribery! Works every time!" She picked up her cane and handed it to a child, before tying a scarf round the youngling's eyes. "They will have their own fun now. Swing!" The child flailed the cane and it reminded Geralt of something.  
"Looks like you with a sword." He couldn't help but chuckle at the absolute glower he got from his aristocratic peanut.  
"Ha." The word was dry as anything yet she smiled and took her place at his side. "They will eat sweets and expend energy now and until their little legs give . . . Give the others a chance!" She paused to bark at the mayhem she had created. "Telling children to sit and stay while their parents are out . . ." Anima waved at the adults drinking and dancing to songs that weren't playing. "They would sneak out . . . We'd spend our night carrouling the youth." A girl whose dress had so much tool she could barely move was giving it a shot. "Not speaking to the dead or reasoning with gods. I plan to have them good and knackered right after the fire's lit." Her explanation ended just as the basket exploded, raining raisins and candies down on the children. "A fine plan if I do say so . . . Geralt?" She was not used to him just ignoring her outright.  
"You." Geralt crouched down infront of a child in some pirate garb.  
"What are you possed to be?" This child was all elbows just scooping at the ground.  
"I'm a witcher." He almost felt the need to remind himself of that. "You should apologize to the princess you just shoved. Give her back that chocolate you stole."  
"Why should I?" The child turned to the girl whose pink dress had been streaked brown by the shove, least all the padding cushioned the fall.  
"Because _I'm_ not very good at playing pretend."  
"Huh?" In turning back some of the color left the child's face, catching all that lack of play in Geralt's mug.  
"Know what witchers do with bandits . . . thugs . . . Pirates?" All the children were staring at him now.  
"Nuh uh."  
"You seem like a smart kid. Guess." Geralt hadn't blinked the entire time and he was fairly certain neither had the child, actually the kid seemed absolutely stuck in place. "Boo!" Geralt's face got a bit closer and children shrieked, the girl in the pink dress started outright sobbing, managing to cry and eat the chocolate given back by the pirate in the same breath.  
"See. Now you're in the spirit." Anima placed a hand on Geralt's back as he straightened upright. "Though ghost stories might keep them up looking for witchers under their beds, not put them to sleep."  
"Can't help it. Save princesses scare children. I'm-"  
"An Arse!" Geralt was walked right into by an impossibly drunker Jaskier, whose face and neck were covered in splotches of lipstain of three different shades.  
"Been busy." If he didn't beccon every incubus succubus and siren for thirty miles Geralt didn't know what would.  
"Just . . . Easing the tension Geralt!" Something found it's way tucked uncomfortably behind the witcher's ears and he didn't like it.  
"What is it?" He sneered as he reached up, it was some nearly wooden headband.  
"What I said. An arse's ears." Jaskier grinned further and Geralt's frown fell as his hand rode up what was, true to word, a set of ears.  
"Fitting." Geralt groaned as he found a bench to brood at.  
"Wouldn't wolf's ears or a cat be more fitting?" Anima sat next to him letting her head rest on his shoulder.  
"Hmm." So he wasn't in hell, he still was alloted small comforts. "This night doesn't need a witcher. Just as well I look as I feel."  
"We'll get back to sense sooner or later." Her fingers felt fine enough drawing patterns on the back of his neck. Witchers could be patient, wait for the right moment to strike, or assimilate into surroundings to get the upper hand but just like bleeding, just like sad emotions, he didn't have to like it.  
"Don't be so down. I've found a task for you." Jaskier had followed.  
"Another basket?" Geralt glanced into it's contents. _'Turnips.'_ He looked back up at the bard. "Don't think the kids will be as thrilled with those."  
"No I need you to carve faces into them. You're good with blades should be easy work."  
"An arse is right." Geralt grumbled as he took out his dagger. "This is a lot of work to simply figure out where some nest could be." It was the smarter tactic to stay, Incubi were nothing if not incredibly social, problem was, Witchers weren't.  
"This work's mostly to keep their spirits up. They put on a good face but their God. . . Even if truly isn't. Had been kind, had inspired hope during down crops. Made girls feel special and wanted-"  
"I'm sure it did." Geralt rolled his eyes.  
"Then it's whole demeanor changed a few months back. It started small, wanting more, being less polite. The women thought maybe they hadn't been keeping their appearances, fasted and synched. Farmers thought they had been selfish keeping too much of their crop to themselves and their kin, rationing became the law of the land. He kept pushing and pushing they gave and gave."  
"Till Severi said no." Geralt sighed.  
"They've been enduring self imposed starvation, this feast is to mend them Geralt. Even if you speak to or slay whatever it is, they need this to be reminded living a little isn't a crime, doesn't mean damnation."  
"Hmm." Geralt closed one eye as he tried to imagine a face in the root vegetable. "Are you saying this at me or to me?" Anima cared little of humanity and it's woes, she cared for her family this bandwagoning held a dual purpose.  
"We haven't had the means to rest easy Geralt-"  
"Gullet isn't all that far Anima we'll-"  
"And we will eat jerky and wake with frost round our noses the way there, because that's how the path gets in autumn not because we aren't plying our trades best we can, not because we've angered some god. Aldersburg is here _now_."  
"This isn't . . . My sort of fun." Geralt turned the turnip to Anima who laughed.  
"What face is that?"  
"Supposed to be a drowner." His brow scrunched, looked about right to him.  
"Ah! Do a godling next!"  
"I'm doing requests now?"  
"Your working on commission." Anima tossed a flask into his lap.  
"Hmm." Geralt went about carving a set of big moon sized eyes. He never got all the way around to enjoying how loud and raucous the day became but he did let himself eat till he was a bit past full, let himself drink till he was a hair past warm, even let himself smile beyond a smirk as Anima spun clapped and hopped to Jaskiers pickled caroling.

"Geralt want to bob for apples?" The bard waved over the witcher.  
"No."  
"Let me rephrase don't you think Anima would like to watch you Bob for apples?"  
"Is it a game you can win Jaskier?" Geralt liked a challenge, he also liked when Anima looked at him with open want, in bed rolls and Inns that was easily gained, in the public eye the witcher had to work to crack her coy veneer, had to try, he liked that even better, had his skin tingling slightly.  
"Er . . ." Jaskier always did forget that witcher's didn't play, there had to be stakes or something wasn't worth doing.  
"We can make it so." Anima yawned with a smile. In the moment she wasn't looking lustful, more warm and a bit tired, she had at some point found her pelt from their wares, and bundled undeneath of it.  
"If I win your challenge I get to take off the ears." Geralt stood and stretched, eyeing the basin and gave out a hand to Anima, tugged harder than he should have smirking at the small yelp she made as she collided into his chest, he'd woken her up at least.  
"That would be a shame you have a wonderful arse Geralt." She took another long swig as they approached.  
"She meant to say you make for a wonderful arse." Jaskier took her mug away, took a sip his own and his whole face curdled. "How do you drink this mud?"  
"I said." Anima took it back. "What I said." There was laughter, there were looks, someone patted Geralt on the back and commented in some comiserating way on having two mouths, one at each side and the wits not to open his own. For a moment these townspeople forgot. The trio weren't outsiders, weren't freaks and mutants, they were just people, not exactly like them but something close, something not a full world removed.  
_'Happiness isn't days is moments.'_ He tried to remind himself of that, he easily forgot, would take years of breaking that mantra in. He had to remind himself even on the job he was allowed small moments of happiness.

"Finish all your business before you die!" The Ealdorman called for attention, shaking some elk skull that sounded filled with pebbles. With a crack of flint the night grew less and more dark in a monent.  
"Bit dramatic." Jaskier's lute stopped, a bit sour at having the merriment sliced through, finding a seat around the fire.  
"Hmm." Geralt agreed but hearing the sound of wind instead of the wailing of drunks was a change he welcomed. He liked the quiet, could focus on the feel of Anima's fingers combing through damp hair, her thumb always fumbling on the underside of his jaw, behind his ears, dusting long temples, he found himself softly tossing his head into the touch. His hand had been trying to run warmth into the thigh of his empath who ran cold.  
"Bid your loved ones farewell." They watched parents carry away children who had already been dead on their feet. "Write your will." The Ealdorman got nose to nose with some doe eyed young woman with all her life left to lead, she let out a concerned gasp.  
"Ominous." Geralt snorted, this pageantry seemed patronizing, he turned back to what amused him, keeping Anima warm, he kissed at her neck, nipped at the spot where it met her shoulder.  
"Apologize to those you've wronged." The Ealdorman found himself in front of the witcher.  
"Nothing left of them." There was no concerned gasp, Geralt growled, he would not lose a battle of intimidation. The growl curled into a grin, right into her throat, teeth flashing in the night. Anima didn't cringe at his darkness, didn't pull herself from the jaws of a wolf, she staid light, staid soft, her fingers continued to twist and twirl in his hair. She felt safe with him. _'Home.'_ He kept his home safe, warm, cared for. Ignoring the Ealdorman deftly Geralt's nose nudged into her hair, let the strands hide his disinterested eyes.  
"Otherwise, you'll never truly leave this world!"

The fire was tall, dominanted the space, lit up faces gleaming with sweat and paint to things hardly human. Geralt could hear chanting asking for a moment with those departed but he thought that more show, more circus. "Anything to it? Will it be any easier reaching out?" Anima had stated the dead cared little for time, did they care for flames or fan fare?  
"Might . . . Likely not." Anima swished around a bottle infront of her face, she did not look enthused. Geralt fumbled around his side satchel for a moment then extended his palm out to Anima.  
"Here. . . It'll help a bit with the taste."  
"Geralt did you _steal_ candy from children."  
"Salvaged goods from a pirate." Geralt didn't know how many times he made her laugh this day but it had to be a record. She took the piece of candied lovage and placed it into her mouth.  
"Pirate isn't missing much." It tasted of day wilted salad mixed with sugar and she gagged accordingly, chasing it with her potion.  
"Not as bad right?" It had been a bit of a trick, Geralt knew what lovage tasted like, he'd honestly been holding it for the next time he was neck deep in some sewer to elicit a similar affect.  
"Should have gave you horns not ears." She ran her tongue long her own palm. "But yes . . . Not as bad."  
"Hmm." He felt warm and calm but he knew the happy moment was fleeting and he found an odd peace in that, it felt right. The moment wasn't being stolen, just ending.

"I'm going to try something a bit different Geralt." Anima's pupils were leaving her, her focus drifting non existant. "Stay a bit close?"  
"Here." He let his arm fold over her neck, pull her a bit closer to his chest. "Different . . . And with the dead. Anima you can't just make that decision off the cuff."  
"I didn't, I decided to tell you off the cuff." She smiled till even that faded, for a few moments she seemed trance like, almost serine and then it hit. He could feel her body tighten, she'd found something to tether to, string her pulse into, it was unnatural with humans, dangerous with witchers, the dead were pure residual emotion, their hearts didn't beat and so long as Anima was tethered to one, neither did her's.

"Anima?" What was new? What was different? She told him at the last moment so it likely wasn't anything he'd have been a proponent of. To her defense he wasn't a big proponent of most of her long reaches into the void.  
"They don't know him either." She had done it in aretuza, seen other's memories, felt them. She was trying to hone that as a skill not something stumbled on, Anima was seeing through the eyes of the dead. "Áillen who the fuck is that?"  
"Did she . . ." A few with ears on the spectacle walked over. "Is she seeing him Witcher?"  
"Stay. Back." Geralt didn't draw steel but his hand perched dangerously above it. When Anima tethered far from her body this was all the witcher could do to help. It would hurt, she would be in pain, all he could do was keep her body and the area around it as safe as possible. He was not subtle in his aim to do so.  
"He's dead? That's the beast who killed him? A god? How do you define a God? Not everything is a fucking god!" Anima sounded confused, scared maybe even angry.  
"What is she saying?!" The chanting stopped outright.  
"We're his now. The town is his now."  
"Quiet your shrew witcher!" An earlier bobbed for apple struck Anima in the back of her head but she didn't blink, because she didn't feel it, wasn't there, she was somewhere beyond touch.  
"Anima enough." The crowd was becoming a mob. Geralt didn't want to fight them but he'd kill a man who'd touch her is such a state.  
"Likes when I scream." Anima's skin was growing cold, her veins started to strain and darken. Her eyes clenched shut and began to leak.  
"Anima stop." Whatever this creature had done she was living and there was no beast for Geralt to slay, no way for him to protect her.  
"She's been sent here to test us!" Anima was beyond sound, she couldn't hear Geralt's cautions, the angry yells, the calls to have her burned.  
"Want it to . . . Stop . . . Stop hurting . . . Stop screaming . . . stop just stop!" Anima's neck went long as her words grew sorrowful, breaking on the last of her air, she let out a harrowing rasp. Her limbs jerked randomly and Geralt had to fight to keep her held.  
"Geralt?!" Jaskier had scrambled over to the pair. "Don't . . . She's not a demon. She's just . . this is normal . . . Our normal I assure you!"  
"Don't defend the white eyed sow." One man shoved at Jaskier and the bard saw red.  
"One more word! One more disrespectful sylabal-" the bard shoved back, he could be diplomatic _or_ drunk, not both. "Do you not see the pain she's in? For you? She doesn't even _like_ you and she's giving it her every last breath! You lot are so lost on your own-"  
"Sposed to heed her? Who the fuck is she? Any of you? Mouths on you ain't good for nothing but lies and licking-" Dress or no dress Jaskier had a mean hook, he made good on his promise.  
"Anima don't waste your time. Geralt let's go." Jaskier was off to find Roach.  
"Can't." Geralts eyes saw what Jaskier's didn't, faint flickers not of fire but of a ethereal sort of flame. _'Did Anima vine out? Is she holding them all back? Can't hold them for long.'_ Every skill had it's setback.  
"Can't?" Jaskier paused and then spat at the ground. "Bloody hell we can't! We tried! Catered to their backwoods beliefs and-"  
"There are children here." Geralt's teeth ground, his hand moved one blade over, no child should have to die for their parent's beliefs.  
"The dead! Wriaths!" It was no longer a flicker, the humans finally saw what had stopped the witcher. "She's brought an army to fight for her!" Men and woman tripped and ran for their homes. Only a few spectators held their position to gawk.  
"Get Roach Jaskier. Anima you have to let go. Have to come back." She'd been in the void too long, minutes had gone since he heard her heart beat last. That and the bonfire would only amuse the spectres for so long, he couldn't hold, he had to act.  
"He kills us when we stop. When the screams stop." Anima made a bid to stand but Geralt's arm round her neck wasn't so easily swayed.  
"Anima! Enough! That's enough let go!" He wasn't shouting angry he was shouting hoping she could hear him, distinguish him in the physical from whatever she was enduring in the void. The longer she staid the more she saw it as reality.  
"Let. . . " Anima wasn't breathing, she was blinking though, she was crying. "Go. Hurts less to let go. Throat hurts . . . No screams left." Every word was a sucking gasp.  
"Anima. I'm here, trust me. Where you are isn't real. I wouldn't let anything hurt you." This was his job, anchoring her, bringing her back. He took her hand and pressed her fingers at his pulse, pushed hard so she could feel it. He was here, he was alive, no one would hurt her.  
"Geralt?!"  
"I have you. Can you look at me Anima? Open your eyes?"  
"Won't let it get to me . . . If I let go? You promise?" He felt it her heart kick up, beat, she hadn't waited for his answer, she trusted him, had broke the tether. Her muscles were still tight and atrophied but she no longer writhed a woman possessed, she was stone, a woman spent.  
"Can we . . . Geralt . . . How many fucking wraiths is that?" Jaskier had Roach's reigns in one hand, hiking up trousers with the other, what he returned to was just a whirlpool of stuck souls swirling the edges of the bonfire.  
"Take Anima and Roach, head west. I'll come when I'm done here."  
"Geralt there are . . ."  
"Now Jaskier!" This was no longer a group exercise, a matter of debate. He watched as Jaskier scooped up the seized empath and carried her to Roach, tossing her onto the mare. He winced slightly at the shout of pain that came from her, a pain that could have been avoided if a single person had helped the bard. Jaskier found room behind and got Roach moving.  
"You'll kill them witcher?" One yokle to dense to flee had the gal to plea.  
"They're already dead. If you don't wish to join them I'd find a door to lock."  
"Your woman lies! She brought this on us your witch-" it was Daci shouting at the top of her lungs which caught the attention of the first freed spectre, one that launched straight at the human.  
"If a building is burning." Geralt was snarling, threatening, if she didn't get out of his face _he'd_ burn her house down. "Arguing who set it doesn't put it out." Geralt had struck the wraith down by the very edge of his blade. "Get out of the flames." He hissed at the woman. She could think Anima a demon, a heathen, a witch and liar he didn't care, Anima wouldn't care. If he had to waste energy listening to her preaching, protecting her from her own lack of self preservation, that would cost someone greatly, he didn't _like_ bleeding, he refused to do it for a fool's blind belief. "Go!" He boomed. The center of town cleared, that is except for one witcher and twelve wraiths. "Finally." This wasn't fun for Geralt but it was something that made sense, something that felt right in his very bones. Wraiths were his bread and butter, he had a blade in his hand and no living bystanders to worry about. It wasn't mumming or carving turnips but this was a custom he understood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How many blatantly Halloween kitschy things can I convincingly add and have it not be tacky . . . Adds two or three more for good measure.


	3. The God you know

"Everything hurts!" Anima whined into the bedroll she woke in, though it hurt less, she was getting better at tethering to the dead.  
"Anima?! You idiot what were you thinking?! You can't just . . . What the fuck?!" Not exactly a warm greeting but something had gone wrong, you don't feel like ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag when everything goes according to plan.  
"Thought I'd find the women . . . I did." Anima didn't want to open her eyes, partially because they were pounding, partially because she didn't know what she was going to see when she opened them. she could hear Jaskier pacing and that wasn't a great sign.  
"That you did! Brought them right into town."  
"They were scared, hurt, sad and alone." Anima held the tail end of all those emotions, the memories of their pain was swirling cold inside her. She wanted to curl into a ball and sleep it off but then she noticed something. Jaskier was pacing but that's all she heard. "We aren't in town are we?"  
"Anima you don't want to be the last one to leave a festival. Then you're stuck on clean up duty. You're gross and hung over, stuck with the other duds not finding satisfaction in the night." Jaskier perhaps realizing Anima didn't actively insight controversy and chaos it just was in her nature tried a gentler approach.  
"Where's Geralt?" Anima sat up rubbing her eyes, still weary to open them.  
"Stuck on clean up duty. You stole the show as you always do Anima, flailing and crying about dead gods. I had to punch a man."  
"Had to or had been _itching_ to?"  
"I will not dignify that with a response." Jaskier could be an angry drunk when deep in the wrong wine. "Anima I get tethering to them but why . . . There was thirty wraiths. Why would you bring them into town? Did you want them dead?"  
"Thirty?" Anima's eyes shot open and she went dizzy, seeing splotches of red and black.  
"Whoa whoa don't pass out! I may have exaggerated, likely half that but st . . . Anima sit down." Jaskier watched as Anima fumbled to her feet.  
"Perhaps I can hold them, slow them down. I . . . That never happened before . . . No one ever is beckoned less I force some longing sort of emotion in them and I . . ." She scratched at her head, she was sure she hadn't.  
"Perhaps the dead react differently. You have more experiencing meddling around with the emotions of the living. Anima sit down you're making me sea sick!"  
"Geralt can't-"  
"Geralt _could_ handle thirty wraiths, he could handle _eighty_ I'm sure he counts them in his sleep. He can take care if them, anything you would do would just make him worry you're in danger . . . I can hear him now: One job Jaskier I gave you one-" Jaskier's voice grew low and loud, he was going for a laugh but never got one.  
"He wasn't waiting on wraiths."  
"Huh?"  
"The wraiths will tire him. What if in strolls a god?" Flashes of the memory hit her head, the being wasn't physically imposing, it was small in stature, portly, yet it had horns, stripped red and black, had awful teeth, she took a peek down her tunic, the marks were shallow and healing but there. When Anima felt a memory, she _felt_ a memory.  
"Anima are you . . . What did you see?"  
"I saw it." Anima gave big owly blinks as the world grew less fuzzy.  
"Yes but . . ." Jaskier didn't know how rightly to push here, he was sensitive but he wasn't subtle and he felt he was treading a topic best approached softly.  
"That's all that matters." It's look wasn't was bothered her, how it tortured those women could not be rectified. "It is fire and brimstone Jaskier." She had felt the sting of flames on her flesh, this creature wasn't big but it had bite and she was concerned that it could catch a witcher, hands full of anywhere between ten and eighty wraiths, off guard. "I need to-"  
"Trust Geralt." Jaskier was adamant. "You did your job. Let him do his. He was in a mood _before_ , he'll be in a mood _during_ and those zealots will likely kick him out once it's done, he'll be in a mood _after_. Geralt can deal with the wraiths, this god, that's _his_ fight. Wait for yours."  
"It didn't look like a-"  
"If one of you says it's not a god one more time I'll rip my own chest hair out Anima. That means fuck all and you know it. Geralt I understand . . . He's focused on the flesh of it, that's all it ever is to him, all it ever will be, he's . . . Built that way. You know people-"  
"Was going to say it didn't look like a spriggan . . . I tried to, when I let go of the women, tried to tether to it . . . Only caught it for a second . . ."  
"You're an incouragable idiot." Jaskier shook his head as he sat down.  
"Had an old, hard chugging heart. Felt like a spriggan but didn't look like one."  
"Well if it was floating in a vile and made up of weeds I'd be surprised it stumped you. It's a monster not a potion, leave it to the experts Sir Orzech. And eat something you look pale and gross." Jaskier had plenty of scold left but he gave her a chance to see sense.  
"You missed your calling as a medic Jaskier." Anima plopped back down on her bed roll.

"Fuck." He hated this part worse than any clawing or bludgeoning, when a spectre would phase right through him. It made  
His teeth freeze, his toes curl up in his boots, it stole his breath, it was eating at his stamina. The first six were easy, like a knife through butter. The following four yerden had slowed them down, made them face him head on and that was a battle he always won. His hand was losing it's sense of feeling and while making the sign was an action he could do half dead, holding it long enough to set the trap was growing a concentrated chore and either the wraiths were getting faster or he was slowing down. "Wasted energy." He let his breath cool, he'd gone into a frenzy, he had to be smarter, more deliberate, spinning wildly with his sword was no way to win a battle.  
"A witcher." It sounded like a toad mixed with a man. "Is this what you've been up to? Conspiring against me? First you defy me and then you hire a thug to dispatch me."  
"Fuck you're ugly." That last nagging wraith went down and Geralt got a good look at it. _'Not a god.'_ He smiled all teeth, in a menacing way, in a had it with the night sort of way, had it with all the pomp and circumstance just wanted to finish the job sort of way. "Can you blame them. What you asked them to do-" Geralt was getting his breath back as he stalked towards the creature.  
"What I asked was a symbolic gesture, those girls had given in to something lesser, some lying-"  
"Truth is hard to come by here. I'll give you that. _Was_ an Incubi, actually took an interest in them, cared for these people. You saw that humans rewarded it's attention and like a stray sick of scraps-"  
"They didn't listen and chaos befell them didn't it?!" The witcher would give the Yaksha the credit he was due, he could twist a moment to his favor. He had killed the Incubi and took it's place as the town's god. He was taking Geralt's hunt and warping the facts, this was an opportunist through and through. "Did wraiths plague this land before you showed up? Before you tried to remove me? They need me! If it costs them some heads they should be thankful that's all I ask."  
"Hmm." It would run, the second he struck it would flee, this creature was vile and conniving, it was not dumb, it would not battle the witcher head on. So Geralt took the defamation as he stepped closer. "Thankful . . . If you need to demand such a thing . . . Is it true thanks? Or is it surrender you're asking for under an easier word?" Not a god, a Yaksha, not thanks servitude.  
"Humans it is not too late! Repent and-" Geralt struck, these words, they reminded him of priests of the eternal flames spitting at humans who dared to seek out sorceresses and witchers to help them make it through, spewing it as deals with devils, demanding them to suffer pure instead of survive with help from those viewed as unholy. Perhaps it had plucked at a cord Geralt hadn't known existed, that was the only explanation, he struck too soon, his blade had swung more in retaliation than in precision. Even Geralt's worst hacks were better than most, cleaved right into the creatures arm but it had enough room to bite back, except it wasn't a bite it was a burn, a plume of red hot flames sent the witcher back a step giving the Yaksha time to flee. "Fuck!" Geralt hadn't liked this contract before, it was purely angering him by this point. _'Won't lose it.'_ Geralt hadn't even waited for the flames to die down he ran right through them. _'Easier with a fucking horse.'_ He lamented a bit bitterly between stomps.

"Have pity witcher." Geralt was a tracker by trade, he hadn't found any trouble following the blood trail to this old elven ruin.  
 _'Even his home is off the bones of others.'_ Geralt started down a set of stairs. "Pity?" Geralt was listening for any sound outside the pained panting of the Yaksha. Foolishly he wondered if any could be left. Any of the women, the elders that had fairy like features. Nothing, just the last breaths of the beast. "Fresh out." Geralt's foot found the last step.  
"I didn't want to kill them. I _had_ to."  
"That so?" Humans weren't the only ones with songs and dances. He'd heard this before, monsters cornered asking the witcher to commiserate, to understand their motives. Witchers understood the world of man, world of beasts, fit squarely in neither, maybe that's why they were vilified, trusted so little. Where did their alliance lie? Not even witchers themselves could answer that with any level of certainty. "The Incubi? Blood thirsty? Rabid? Tried to kill you?" Geralt was disarming a booby trap, a rigged crossbow. Just another reason he preferred Nekkers and wraiths, predictable battle tactics, it was only those who'd learned the worst from the higher races that were foolish enough to try to trap witchers with tools.  
"Alright alright . . ." The Yaksha hissed as he heard a bear trap release. "Wouldn't you do the same? If given the chance?"  
"No." Geralt squinted down the hallway, ruins never skimped on long foreboding poorly lit coridors.  
"If you could take the place of a man. Have a wife, a family, a home. Didn't have to hunt and run to survive you wouldn't do it? To be respected, a man of a house wouldn't you give anything for that?" Geralt was undoing more taught bows as he thought on the question.  
"Am what I am. Wouldn't take . . . Someone would figure me out, see my true nature. Paint white stripes on a mule doesn't make it an Ofir filly."  
"That's why I had to kill the girls . . . Those roaming elders, only ones who saw it's face, heard it's voice. Leave now witcher. I promise I won't kill another! I didn't want to-"  
"Lying is your best trait. Do you want to know what mine is? Can you guess?"  
"I'm not-"  
"She saw it. Felt it. What you did to them."  
"I . . . Do I look like something with the anatomy to fuck a Dh'oine? I took the Incubi's place not his passions."  
"No." Geralt's boot clicked against something that clattered a bit hollow. _'Femur.'_ He lifted it turning it in the flickering light. "You ate them?" He saw puncture marks in the bone. _'Teeth.'_  
"No one was bringing me milk and honey I had to survive. They keep building homes, taking up land, less and less a place for the likes of us witcher."  
"There is no us." The Yaksha had run out of luck, this hallway had an end, a dead one, Geralt was staring at him as he slowly peeled out his silver blade. "Chance to die conscious clear. Everything you said . . . You never mentioned them."  
"What? Their names? I remember them I do! There was a Rene, a Ive, heneth. . . Don't kill me witcher, it wasn't my fault that I wanted a slice of what they made of my home. You understand don't you? If it was that easy? Just a few lost souls you wouldn't want to start over. . . Don't act beyond pining! It ain't fair we do without! I see it! Gaunt in your gills, cold in your bones. Why you? Why us?" The creature was worse with faces than the witcher, thought Geralt was considering it. To be fair Geralt was considering something but not how to mum as a human. "Say you've gotten my blessing you can have a home! Hell you can be baron of that bloody place!"  
"World isn't fair." Geralt held the blade at the beast's throat. "I would've sliced out your entrails if the world was just." Geralt fixed problems, he didn't judge the guilty, he was a witcher not a god. The Yaksha's claws were pawing behind him at stone.  
"I'll apologize, amend. Please Hinse, Ive, Yalleve-" The witcher's downward blow halted.  
"Did she scream?" He didn't need to know the answer but the question came out. It was the why that always stuck in his craw.  
"What?!"  
"Killing, eating, nesting, what monster do, can't be blamed for-"  
"Exactly you get it! You understand I'm but a simple beast trying to surv-"  
"You _liked_ the sound of their screams. You didn't just kill the women, you _tortured_ them, you _wanted_ their pain. Beasts don't want, monsters only need. I'm not killing you for revenge, I'm killing you to finish a job so that I can survive. Revenge is a choice, and I am just a witcher, choices like that are not a luxury I was blessed with."

"What are you doing now?" Jaskier had noticed Anima popping bottles, untying herbs.  
"Well you you told me to stop pacing. So I'll mix . . . Till Geralt comes back."  
"Is there a chance you're wrong?" Jaskier blurted a bit nervously.  
"I'm wrong all the time. Thought I was going on a trip down memory lane, pulled every wraith within miles, seemed right, wrong choice." Anima was busy brewing but she could tell Jaskier was in the mood for conversation, he was allowed his coping mechanism as well. "In what way would you like me to be wrong? This contract has been . . . Murky."  
" _Could_ it be a god?" That wasn't the question Jaskier was asking, in fact Anima didn't believe he was asking a question at all.  
"It _could_ be." Anima shrugged. "Though Geralt did seem pretty resolute he was hunting flesh and blood. I did tethered to it and . . . I mean I've never tethered to a god so-"  
"No. No. You're right." Jaskier took out his lute, started strumming a bit haphazardly.  
"It is alright to believe in gods Jaskier. They are _very_ real. Trust me I know. Geralt is speaking so flipantly of god worship because it can . . . Lead down dark roads, sometimes those roads end at the tip of his sword makes him . . . On edge." God worship and fear mongering tended to go hand in hand both it bustling cities and backwoods settlements. "He doesn't pray, that doesn't mean he thinks less of people who do." Anima knew that Geralt thought better of people, better than she generally thought was due, no one scorned by human hands championed for them as hard as the white wolf  
"Is it alright to have _faith_? To not only believe in what you know to be real . . . But things you just have a trust that are true." That was a question, a big question, a question Anima was the wrong person to ask. She had a thimble's worth of trust and gave none of it to those she didn't know inside and out.  
"Are you asking for _them_ . . . Or for you? Jaskier you don't impress me as one for religion. Nor have I ever known you to ask for permission." This was out of character for the bard. Anima stopped her fussing and really looked at him for a moment, searching for the root of the issue.  
"Permission? Don't insult me. No just . . . An opinion? I think and feel deeply Anima, leads to the big questions in life. A creative mind needs to see from all angels."  
"My opinion? I don't have . . . Faith. Neither does Geralt. We are driven by what we know, what our skills are. Goals before gods I guess."  
"So what you're saying is-"  
"Some times that blinds us just as well as faith though. So whose to say better or worse, right or wrong. It is a matter of moderation I think." Detatched was her least favorite word, by the way Jaskier's face soured his was likely moderation. She chuckled and went back about her busy work.  
"You two? With eyes that can see through stone?"  
"Bit much." Anima scoffed.  
"Sorry, sorry go on. Imagination is for children was what you were saying."  
"What I was saying is. . ." Anima chose her words carefully she didn't like the bard ignoring them and stuffing in one's she hadn't said. " We believe in what we know and sometimes that makes options or thoughts that, people with minds more willing to take leaps. . . Some might say creative minds." She paused to nod at the bard. "Can easily come to but we can't." Anima shrugged. "Faith, knowledge, imagination, whatever sets your sails. Just don't do it blindly. That's what causes problems. If praying every once in a while that a husband can't hear you ducking under his bed works, go on with it. Just don't fuck in the street claiming lightning will strike the cuckold down."  
"It's not that." Jaskier gave a snort but he was smiling, her words had calmed whatever was itching some far part of his over active mind.  
"What else do you pray for?" Jaskier's smile fell for a moment. "I . . . It's supposed to be a secret isn't it? I apologize Jaskier just-" For a woman who was a den for a diety Anima hadn't spend much time in temples or in books of scripture.  
"I'm terrible at secrets." Jaskier's fingers stopped twiddling with strings. "Just . . . Don't laugh?"  
"Promise."  
"And don't tell Geralt. He . . . I understand he would respect it but I think it would just-"  
"I'm much better at secrets than you Jaskier."  
"I pray for _us . . ._ sometimes. Normally it's when Geralt's gone and bled all over my things or you've gone tumbling through . . . Wherever it is you go. Sometimes though . . . Usually when I've had too much to drink and not enough . . . Companionship, I get a bit . . . Theological."  
"A good wine will do that." Anima stuck to stouts for a reason.  
"I. . . every once in a while just pray that we'll . . . Get some good sun ups is all."  
"Well. Even though I don't pray, we've had a few good sun ups, and there's only so many more till winter. So I see no reason to break the trend." Anima smiled, she found it harder to find words for the bard, seeing as he tended to get to them first but this time what she had said seemed to be a shade less doom and gloom than her normal pessimism and it was received with no huff or offended retort something even better.

"Well enough of serious how bouts for silly?"  
"I'm working Jaskier." Anima was worrying was what she was doing, she just happened to be doing so with herbs and alcohol in her hands. _'He's been gone for hours.'_  
"Bah! Whsitle and work Anima." Jaskier went back to strumming, he understood why his companions didn't pray but maybe his music could fill that spot, maybe those who only believed in what they knew to be true could find some peace it his words.  
"The fishmonger then? If we're going silly?" Anima relented, she still looked concerned but the bard was and always would be the best distraction.

"Oh fishmonger, oh fishmonger Come quell your daughter's hunger.  
To pull on my horn.  
As it rises in the morn.  
For 'tis naught, but bad luck To f . . . Fuck what is that?" Something was tripping towards their camp. "Hello?"  
"Invite it for tea why don't you?" Anima was blinking the world white but she was too slow. Into camp stumbled a grumpy and gore covered witcher.  
"This will not end well." Jaskier noted the burlap bag, knew what it was, a trophy, a head, Geralt had killed it.  
"Wasn't a god." Geralt was breathing heavy not out of outlandish pain, he had likely grown frustrated tracking his companions down. "Anima what are you-" The witcher's eyes grew wide as Anima shoved her hand down Jaskier's chemise.  
"Invite me for tea f. . . Fuck . . . Ow" The bard rubbed his chest trying his hardest to scowl at Anima who had a fist full of plucked chest hair.  
"What the fuck is this?" Geralt blinked thoroughly confused at this exchange.

"Alright it's settled. Can we go?!" Anima was shoveling all her items back into her pack as they finished yet another theology debate. It was decided they would go back into town and collect payment on what Geralt stated was a Yaksha. They would do so despite knowing the backlash would come because the town had a right to know they'd been had and maybe would be wiser the next time something sentient with horns stumbled through and just stated they were rulers of fate. Anima was over it, she could play the middle no longer, she wanted to be in a bed with her witcher and having not a single pious thought till well into next spring.  
"Anima don't move." Geralt's tone had already been serious but it darkened further, almost bordering on threatening. His one hand found her back, his palm spanning as wide as it could, protecting as much skin as possible. The other grabbed for steel, it had been a while since he'd had to deflect arrows. "It's not wise to sneak on a witcher."  
 _'Huh?'_ Anima was fast enough this time, her eyes lost their pupils and scanned the forest, ten maybe fifteen humans.  
"Is it true you killed him? Killed Áillen?" One voice called out to them.  
"Calm them down Anima? It's hard to explain valid points when . . . Surrounded." Jaskier still didn't see the threat but very much believed it was from all corners. Anima was ahead of the bard, thinning out her pulse, tethering it to the hiding townsfolk.  
"I killed what murdered your daughters, what killed the incubus that went by Áillen." Geralt did his best to explain what was very easily explainable if people bothered to listen. A bowstring released an arrow sang through the air and Geralt even out of practice was able to strike it clean in motion. _'No one ever fucking listens.'_  
"You've cursed us. We realize that now." A different voice, calmer in tone but the mindset remained. "A demon, a temptress and a false prophet. We should have never let you in our walls. He was right. We were fine before you showed up."  
"Hey now!" Jaskier stood straight and proud and looked very much the target he was.  
"Jaskier get down!" Geralt could parry arrows but he couldn't be two places at once and the bard wasn't within swords length.  
"I will not. Good lads. Listen here. What Geralt said is all true and he has the rotting mess to prove it. What I said earlier was true as well." Jaskier was stepping ever more onto open grass.  
"Jaskier! Enough. We'll leave without the coin. Let them have the last word." Principle was not worth losing the bard.  
"Never." That was true sacrilege. Geralt stood, placing Anima behind him, unhappily stepping forward himself.  
"Whacha say earlier? That smart quip bout my wife?" The bard could open a dailouge, though where that open door took him was sometimes a gamble.  
"No . . . Well . . . No I stand by it. If she was word on a page she would be fine print."  
"Ha!" Someone got a laugh out of that line finally, that person was Anima. "Aw Geralt! Why don't you use lines like that." The empath was feeding calm to the field but that made her a bit too cavalier herself.  
"Because I'm not a fisherman I don't cast lines. Can we focus on the task at hand?" He listened as Anima yawned. "Thank you." She planned to use her ability to put them to sleep.  
"What I said was, Anima used to hold a diety in her body."  
"Jaskier." How many times did the witcher have to call for the man to back down? Geralt heard a few bows lower, heard yawns and even a body falling to the ground in full slumber. They were close to safe, Jaskier just had to shut his fucking mouth.  
"If she could curse you . . . If you believe she has . . . With those powers left within her blood. Wouldn't it be wise to ask her to lift it? Perhaps bless you instead?"  
"What are you doing Jaskier?" He clearly would not be stopped perhaps the best Geralt could hope for was to be in the loop.  
"She could do that?" One man got out after a yawn, more bodies were hitting the floor. The bard was buying time, distracting, delaying.  
"I can . . . Wish you well." Anima was grinding knuckles into her eyes trying to stay awake. _'There's leaning your lore and starting a cult Jaskier.'_  
"Hmm." Geralt spun around Anima was trying to speed them to sleep but that meant she'd fall soon as well. That spin had spooked the last man standing, an arrow flew and was whizzing for the witcher.  
"Geralt!" Jaskier was not all talk, he was also plenty of gangly limbs, he dove like the dramatic idiot he was and the arrow found a home in the bard's left shoulder blade. "Fuck!" Jaskier rolled a bit like an upturned turtle in the grass, Anima thunked face first into the ground.  
"Shit." Geralt walked a small circle assessing the turn of battle. He was the only one still on his feet. "Hmm." Geralt walked over to Jaskier first, snapping the arrow shaft, careful not to jostle at the pierced muscle. "That was stupid. _I_ could have dodged it."  
"Are you gloating right now?!" Jaskier glared through the pain. "You're confusing stupid with heroic."  
"Same thing." Geralt pulled out the projectile.  
"Ow fuck! Gentle you brute."  
"Hmm." He pulled the bard to his feet. "Roach is gonna get real tired of carrying you soon." The witcher nodded over at the mare who did, as Jaskier tilted his pale face, somehow look over their bullshit. "I'll walk thank-"  
"Need to get you to a healer. Anima isn't up for it." Geralt nodded over at Anima whose face was in the dirt snoring away. "And I'm not gentle." Geralt was pulling at the bard's collar, inspecting the entry wound. "Clean." He sounded not quite pleased but less irrate once he uttered the word. "Need help up or can you-"  
"I'm not dying Geralt this isn't the worst wound I've suffered saving-"  
"On the horse Jaskier." Geralt's shoulders snapped a bit, remembering some of those worse wounds. "If you listened and staid back-"  
"The curse of a hero Geralt." The bard patted one of those tense shoulders before approaching Roach with dread filled soft footing. "Hand me our resident dead weight. She's got this trick down, not a single wraith."  
"You're not a hero." Geralt lifted Anima and passed her over to Jaskier, wiping some dirt from her face. "Pays far worse than a bard." Geralt didn't want Jaskier to be a hero, he wanted him to live and those two paths never forked together for long. "Your songs are needed, your reflexes are-"  
"Did you just compliment me? All it took was a near death-"  
"Slow." Geralt finished his assessment.  
"Close enough."  
"Hmm." It had been too close for Geralt's liking. The coin he and Severi had agreed on wasn't worth all the ridiculousness of the last two days.  
"I'll corral the dozed mob, you can find your way back?"  
"I unlike Anima have a sense of true north."  
"The blood loss how-" Geralt sneered as the stain to Jaskier's doublet grew.  
"Geralt drag them back to town. I will complain to you about my mortality all you like when I've had stitches and a strong drink."  
"Hmm." Geralt 's teeth ground at leaving his companions again but his glower wouldn't make the task at hand disappear. _'Should have been faster.'_ He could do two things at once,he scolded himself as he started marching to the closest passed out townsfolk. "Jaskier?"  
"You're welcome Geralt."  
"Fuck." He was had been out drawn in battle and in words. _'Can this day get worse?'_ It was a bad question, the worst question, things could always go more south. He felt a drip on his nose. "Hero's praise and all that. Try . . . Really try to keep your mouth shut till I get there? Wounds, weather, next in line is-"  
"Wraiths? We already skipped the queue on that one."  
"Try?"  
"I will try no promises." The bard was off.

"He's here!" A woman called and one foot in townthere was a swell of people around him, not a pitchfork in sight which was odd.  
"I . . .Yes."  
"We'll be eating under the stars tonight." Some unsolicited information carried over him dismounting a borrowed horse.  
"Good . . . For you?" This was not the conversation he saw himself getting into. "They aren't dead just . . . Sleeping." He went with what he had rehearsed.  
"We know. We heard." It was Daci, she wasn't screaming or spitting at him, she had a chastised look on her face which was . . . Alarming.  
"Heard?" Geralt let out an exhausted sigh, he'd used axxi to bring the men and horses into town and he was tapped, even a bit achy, signs always made his muscles tense and twitch in the worst ways. "What did . . . I killed . . ."  
"Jams . . . We only have mulberry that will suffice won't it?" This information again was unsolicited but it did give him a hunch of how this day had wound up worse still.  
"No promises." Geralt groaned as he started pacing towards the scent of Jaskier's blood.  
"The prognosticator is patched up and Anima is sleeping. Do not wake her with your heavy feet, I don't care if your her conscript. She will wake when-"  
"Prognas . . .Conscript?" Those were fancy words for barker and warrior, too fancy for Daci, just over done enough for a bard.  
"Jaskier!" Geralt's heavy foot kicked the door straight open.  
"I tried!" Was what he was met with.  
"And then?"  
"They demanded your head Geralt, silence was getting me nowhere, it never does! So I went with what worked in the woods then . . . got a teency bit carried away?"  
"You carry us to-"  
"Where now?!" Anima was getting a bit tired of waking up not where she had left off.  
"Get you both up to speed then. Anima you need to bless this place before we go. Geralt they can't kill you for killing . . . Whatever you killed because that will upset Anima and she . . . May or may not curse them just the smallest bit."  
"Fuck." Anima slammed back into bed.  
"I . . ." Geralt had been what ten, twenty minutes behind the bard at most? How had he created a whole mythos in minutes? "How's your shoulder?" Geralt sat on the edge of Anima's bed, pleased to feel her fingers working at the twitchy over used muscles in his hand. He looked at Jaskier half annoyed, fully in disbelief. His family was safe despite his pacing being off multiple times along the way. It was luck not the grace of gods but either way as bad as his day was going he was thankful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm torn between loving the campy parts of this story and hating . . . Everything else, I really didn't want to get that theological so I'm going to try and wrap this up without going that road too far again, we'll see.


	4. Blind belief

"Now they say couples start to look like one another when they've been together for quite some time but I refuse to look at this matching set of mugs." Jaskier scowled at the pair.  
"Hmm?" Geralt glanced over and Anima's face looked . . . Well it looked nothing like his, for one she was smiling and even if he couldn't feel his face, which wasn't a sensation he was lacking, he knew he had no such grin. Then he saw it, in her eyes, held back and frustrated, perhaps pain. "Still working out the wraiths?"  
"No. I'm fine." She wasn't fine, she was hurt in some way and wasn't telling him. He went to push but her legs swung out of bed and she was staring at Jaskier. "They patched you fine. Did they give you anything for the pain?"  
"No." Jaskier was lying as well, Geralt could smell the medicine still fresh on his breath. He was confused, there was no way that ontop of an incubi and a Yaksha there was also some sort of her on this town that made people liars. Then Geralt blinked a bit concerned, that in itself was a lie.  
 _'My luck does always find lower pastures.'_

"Preferably something that doesn't taste of boot leather and swamp water if you can Anima."  
"I can . . . Try to mask the taste of boot leather and swamp water . . . Potions aren't meant to be swished and savored Jaskier." Anima was out of bed and into her bag. "Do you need anything Geralt. The twitching settled but-"  
"Just double whatever you're making for Jaskier." It made her feel better to be doing something and until he could figure out what else was ailing her he'd let her distract herself.  
"Well really you two have afflictions of-" There was a knock and knowing of the web the bard had weaved Geralt growled preemptively annoyed.

''Do you . . . Do you hate doors Geralt?" Perhaps the growl had more grit than intended.  
"I prefer not to have a post to pester at." Geralt shrugged.  
'You hate doors . . . Add it to the list Anima." Jaskier sighed. "Bellow merriment but above carp."  
"Carp?" Geralt asked a bit confused, even more baffled when the knocking stopped, there were some frightened whispers and then scurrying footsteps. That had never happened before, once knocking started it only got louder and more adamant in his experience.  
"You're not a picky eater but the smell of fish bothers and the taste doesn't exactly elicit a thrill." Anima had a quick answer which gave Geralt concern that there was in fact a tangible list. He was going to ask but then there was another knock.  
"Hmm."  
"We don't mean to disturb . . . Merely apologize for our intrusion."  
"Jaskier fix this." The witcher waved bothered at a door he was possibly growing a personal disdain for.  
"It is . . . Not that simple." Jaskier embellished often so he understood why the Witcher wasn't grasping it but this town did really have all intentions of lynching the witcher.  
"It's plenty simple." Geralt stood and opened the door mid knock. "Stop." There was maybe four or five townsfolk hovered at the opening.  
"Please don't curse-"  
"No one will _curse_ you. Anima is not a god. I apologize for not . . . Being as respectful as I could have been . . . I just . . . Tact is . . . Not what will keep you safe. I get very focused on the task at hand and-" Geralt was really doing his best, admitting to faults, he'd even begun a half decent apology, problem was even when he spoke people hardly took the time to listen.  
"She . . . Was chosen by a goddess though. A paragon right? Has her blessing?"  
"Paragon?" Geralt turned his head to look at Jaskier with absolute exhaustion and annoyance, the bard gave an apologetic shrug.  
"We just want-"  
"How about this?" Anima was handing a vial to Jaskier and one to Geralt.  
"What's that? Is it holy-"  
"Boot leather and swamp water." Geralt didn't know how to get through to these people, he didn't care that they had beliefs he just didn't know why absolutely everything and anything was other worldly to them. They were being purposefuly gullible and they were going to wind up in more trouble if they didn't reign it in.  
"I'm going to-" Anima was dragging a chair out into the hallway and Geralt was all the more confused. He knew she was built to give people what they wanted but she wasn't really going to present herself as a god was she? "Sit here, and I would like each one of you to come to me one by one and tell me what it is you . . . Pray for." She was she absolutely was.  
"Anima stop-"  
"Please, we know we've upset you." A woman grabbed onto Geralt's arm. "For disrespecting her, but we apologize. Let her hear us?"  
"Anima?" He looked as her face as she sat down and the hurt in eyes grew yet her smile remained. "We should-"  
"You two rest a bit. You've both earned some." He heard it that time, knew now that she hadn't fallen on a joint wrong, it wasn't that sort of hurt. She was frustrated and upset because she felt she had been more a hindrance than a help through this contract.  
"Anima you tried-"  
"And I will only get better the more I try. I don't want to grow detached Geralt." So she wasn't doing this to take a throne, she was doing it because she felt she had lost some touch with human emotions and she wanted to hear every single town persons desires and fears as to get some of it back.  
"You've reached a lot these last few days don't-"  
"Today is for listening. It is important to listen. Don't worry Ger-" She had her hand on the door to close it and let the men nap but Geralt shouldered his way through.  
"Conscript's supposed to protect you right?" It was a stupid word, one that he was going to scrub out of Jaskier's mouth with lye if he used it again but it wasn't a lie, he was a protector, that's what he did. He stood behind Anima's chair and listened as the humans explained their very human problems. He kept running his fingers through the back of her hair, letting nails scratch at her neck when he knew a prayer got a bit to much of for humanity or woe is me, to simply comb the scowl out of Anima's face. Someone prayed that their daughter would be a bit more happy and when Anima flinched, when her whole body iced he was there, protecting her, leaning in kissing the top of her head. "You're fine. More than fine. Down right godly." He teased. "You're not detached Anima. Wouldn't let you." He was whispering it right into her skull as his eyes bored holes into that of the prayer giver.

She gave good advice, practical advice for practical problems. Jaskier came over after the third or fourth list of ingredients for a pointion that would help with a particular ailment. The prognosticator opted instead to take notes, one of Anima's growing lists and two of the names of those wishing to find luck in love. It went on for hours. Most prayers were for health and happiness, legacy and loved ones but there was a theme that stuck out, was odd. "Please don't have me return from the dead." Or "Let my flesh settle, let my sins not bring the rot to rise." A small child was mercifully blunt about it. "Crer was a bad man, mamma says if I do bad things when I die my head'll pop just like Crer."  
"Rotfiends." Geralt noted, this town had luck to rival his own.  
"Oh joy. Does anyone here have a doublet I can borrow . . . This town sees fit to rob me of every clean article-"  
"Everyone will stay here Jaskier. If it's been this big a problem there's likely multiple nests. You've got a bum arm you will . . . They want to eat under the stars, do that with them." Geralt knew if it had made every other creature under the sun seem worthy of praise this was more than just their bargain infestation. "Bring your Ealdorman." Geralt spoke to the man who had just finished his prayer. "Anima that was clever." He gave a doting sort of squeeze on the back of her neck. She wasn't doing this just to get her feel for emotions back, this was Anima, it had a dual purpose.  
"The why always matters." She had figured these humans weren't gullible they were afraid. They had some threat ravaging their village and made sense of it the only way they knew how. They thought the gods had grown upset with them and were seeking penance from anything and anyone, not deliberating on the cost. She sounded tired though, wants and needs were like blades to empaths and he could hear the weight was getting to her. "Anima if you need a break-"  
"I chose the wrong one."  
"Huh?"  
"In the field with the archers. Calm wasn't the right emotion. I'm sorry Jaskier." She turned to the bard with true apology in her eyes.  
"You know us humans aren't the only ones to make mistakes." Jaskier scrunched his nose while looking at his list. "I had such instant chemistry with them both. Do you think Salde or Arda would be the more entertaining dinner date?"  
"Yes but-"  
"I know I sold the story convincingly but you really aren't a god Anima." He didn't view this as some mortal blunder he just viewed it as being mortal. "I . . . Maybe shouldn't have jumped in front of a crossbow bolt. I know better, I've seen Geralt dodge. Yet-"  
"You've shot me before."  
"Will you let that go?"  
"No."  
"Fair." Jaskier seemed un bothered by that as well. "Grudges, lapses in judgment. If not for your eyes you'd slip just as well in any home here."  
"Paint white stripes on-" Geralt would explain it, _again_ , he'd explained it hundreds of times, dozens solely to the bard.  
"You are not human. I am aware. You remind me constantly. Reflexes and senses . . . Show offs the both of you."  
"It's not-" Jaskier complained that Geralt didn't talk to him yet every time the witcher opened his mouth the bard just began again.  
"I admire the show every time just as you hold back reverent tears of appreciation ever time I sing."  
"Anima he double up on potions I think his brain is melting."  
"There are things that separate us, though not as much as you two punish yourselves into thinking. That face I was speaking of earlier, that's the face I detest most on both of you."  
"And what's that Jaskier?" Anima could speak faster than Geralt, just quick enough to get a sentence in.  
"That your purpose wasn't filled and that . . . In doing so your worth has deminished. Your smile gets all craned and glossy, Geralt's shoulders lurch into his ears. It's not just one of you, the both, terrors of the same sort. It's ghastly and I refuse to let it haunt my nightmares and follow us all the way to gullet."  
"Hmm." Geralt probably should have felt this all to be wasted breath on the bard's behalf. Mutants knew where they stood, on the edge of obsolete, made for a particular path or purpose and when their skill to do so faltered so did their footing in society. Yet while he knew that to be true maybe not all lies told were terrible, maybe it was fine to believe something even if it wasn't fact. "Haunt enough nightmares as it is." He could try.  
"You could give smiling a go now and again Geralt."  
"I did smile."  
"Di . . . Whe . . . If you can catalog your smiles you're not doing it enough."  
"Debatable." Geralt wasn't going to become a person of faith, nor would he become a person who smiled often, he couldn't change his stripes, only alter his stride. "Smiled last night. Even made a joke."  
"He didn't." Jaskier scoffed over at Anima.  
"He called me a peanut in a hat."  
"Were you _not_?"  
"Jaskier I told you I was supposed to-"  
"Supposed to be and definitely were are two different things. I was supposed to-"  
"You asked for me?" The Eladorman approached.  
"Rotfiends." Geralt walked up to the man. "You have a problem with rotfiends."  
"Yes for decad-"  
"They will come back if you don't burn your dead instead of burying them. They likely have been hunting these grounds for centuries and will come back if there is . . ." He paused before saying food. "Bodies." He could have some tact.  
"We . . ." The Eladorman's eyes grew large.  
"My . . . That was the old way . . . I . . . Led them astray."  
"You had the cemetery built?"  
"I had attended a funeral in a near by settlement many years back. Burials seemed more permanent way to respect the dead."  
"Hmm." The witcher scraped the back of his skull trying to find a way to put it that wasn't insensitive. The facts were simple, dead was dead and this particular town had to burn their bodies or else rotfiends would congregate. "You didn't do it with malice but what works a settlement over . . . The living are the ones respecting the dead . . . Keep your living safe, lead the living."  
"I . . . Yes." Geralt was a witcher, he didn't judge the guilty nor could he absolve a man of sins he didn't quite commit. He merely watched the man scurry away with the weight of everyone's anguish squarely on his shoulders. There was no one left but Geralt had been looking for a face he hadn't yet seen.  
"Severi didn't show."  
"Should we go-"  
" _You_ need to take a break. Or _your_ head will pop like a rotfiend's." He moved in front of Anima's chair, crouching down to her level. "I have to-"  
"Save everyone like always." She leaned forward and took his cheeks on his palm, giving him a small kiss. "You will come home smelling terrible like always." Then a second.  
"Not always." He grumbled a bit into a third. "Will take a bath." He promised into a fourth kiss tipping her head back a bit.  
"I am right here." Jaskier noted.  
"Shot your shoulder not your leg." Anima had earned a minute, she'd earned more than a minute. Geralt would give what was available now and give what she asked for later.  
"Bawdy bums when you're not brooding." Jaskier gave a pleased snort as he stood. "Leave your notes in the room Anima. I'm off to answer prayers."  
"And we're bawdy." Anima's forehead rested for a moment into Geralt's as she laughed. "Salde or Arda?"  
"I am a bountiful God Anima. I have enough-"  
"Jaskier. Do not get carried away again." Geralt warned.  
"Right right. Mortal mistake. Thank you for the check Geralt."  
"Hmm." He listened as the bard's footsteps skipped off. "I didn't forget." He lifted her chair and all, walking it into the door the bard hadn't bothered to close.  
"Geralt!" It wasn't a frightened laugh, Anima loved hights as much as she hated water, he could tell it thrilled her slightly, he jostled his grip just to rationalizd a toss for a moment, to get another laugh. "Forget what? That I can walk? This has been a long day but it's been hours since I've-"  
"What you wanted from me." He planted the chair back down on the floor, taking in in the small amused smile that he put there. "My attention." His shoulders curled in, she should have felt boxed but she seemed all the more entertained, just a little less exhausted. "Take a nap?"  
"You rile me then ask me to nap?"  
"You riled yourself." He leaned in and let his chin settle in the crook of her neck, letting his senses get blanketed for a moment, his night was about to get bloody and full off the scent of spoiled flesh, he wanted to hold this spot till the last possible second.  
"No. You were there all kissable and-" Her fingers were dusting the edges of his ears in a way that he felt soft and stone in the same moment, she left a lovely little nip and his jaw and he let out something of a snarl that swallowed a groan as what he wanted and what he had to do battled for surpemacy.  
"Hmm. I won't leave if you start breaking me like that. I will stay and we'll be stuck in this town another-"  
"Alright Alright. Go clean up those nest and then come back."  
"You will rest some?"  
"Geralt why are you so worried-"  
"Not worried. I-"  
"Lies." It was a chuckled hiss as she bit at his ear. He would be gnawed on for hours, it was nice to have some reminders that his flesh wasn't always for breaking just for marking just for enjoying.  
"I always worry." It _had_ been a lie. "More so I want you to have enough energy. You seem a bit tired."  
"Oh? Energy enough for what?"  
"For my attention. That's what you wanted. What I want you to have. Greedy to give it up."  
"Greedy to give what a paradox you are Geralt." She didn't always curve her sentences with a coo, but this had a practice purpose.  
"Hmm." The touch, the smell, she was giving him sentences to focus on instead of the screeching and gurgling of the rotfiends. "You are allowed mistakes." It did bother him slightly that she'd gotten so bent over one wrong choice. "The bard is right, for all you do . . . A mistake or two will happen." He did prefer contracts he tackled alone, the empath and bard added liabilities he didn't need but when they assisted when they were given a chance to shine they gave the witcher boosts better than any blade oil or elixer.  
"Said the frog to the toad."  
"Hmm." He doubted this was a lesson via actions she intended, nor was it one likely to stick but hearing him say it himself, wanting her to give herself some slack, did have him feeling slightly better about how he had been too quick to strike earlier. "I'll be back soon."  
"Miss you already."  
"Here." She was not the only one who could tease with touches. He finally willed his neck to move, biting down on her throat to the point right before pleasure crumbled into pain, leaving creasants into her skin that stoked him something wonderful. "To remember me." He gave a smug grin as went about getting his armor and blades situated, without a goodbye he was gone.

Hours later when he returned he was confused, which wasn't all that surprising, she always found new ways to baffle. "You've got it backwards." She was laying in their bed in one of his tunics and a black scarf round her eyes. How long had she been laying like that? She'd been simply waiting for him, he could smell it, she had been anticipating him. He felt any blood not spilt on the cemetery flood south. Perhaps she had changed her mind in what she was after but that was of little consequence he was greedy for all of her wants so long as they were of him.  
"I do not. I still want what I said. I'd like your eyes, if you're comfortable. I'd like your attention." She wanted them both to be visonless? She sounded confident and close to keening, the wasn't much he wouldn't oblige, sensible or not.  
"You won't be able to . . ." It went without saying so he didn't, instead asked a different question. "Why?"  
"I won't be able to see it so you'll just have to show me Geralt."  
"Hmm." The wording didn't make sense, how you show something to someone who can't see but Geralt was good at riddles. He loved to try and even if he failed, mistakes happened, she'd let him try again, try better. He had come back to town a bit worried after all his talk of rest and energy that he'd be tapped from the five hours he spent hacking at necrophages but his skin was absolutely tingling, his pulse already rising.  
"I will." In a passing thought it had really such a waste of time that he had gotten fully dressed after his bath at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortest chapter I've written in centuries sorry / your welcome depending on you patience level. I really promise I was trying to keep this mostly light and fun, I've just also been plotting a piece that's been a struggle bus and I think it kind of altered my tone.


	5. Foreplay and forgiveness

She didn't do this often, it was fun, exciting, it didn't take away from the somber state of this town but it had him feel a bit less weighted by the days that had passed. He was quiet with his footsteps, if she knew he was at the edge of the bed he wasn't sure. "Geralt?" She sounded tense but there was trust there, she didn't whip off the blindfold in search of her witcher, she knew he was somewhere, knew he would find her and she'd be all the better for it. He crouched down and in a swift motion pulled at her ankles till her knees were bracketed at his shoulders. "Geralt!" her shout devolved into a jittered laugh.  
"Here." That never ceased to amaze, witchers were not funny people despite Lambert's ademency that he was hilarious, yet Geralt had found people around him comfortable enough to laugh even if he was a funny as a wooden duck. If he thought about it he'd never been one to be playful but it seemed fine enough in very very small spurts. He laid heavy pressed kisses up her leg till there was no more thigh to go. "You kept your smalls on." It was merely an observation, if he thought about it he preferred it, gave him more to do.  
"So I don't have your eyes yet." She returned his observation with one of her own, that's all it sounded of, no disappointment, no rush.  
"No." He liked his hands where they were pressing her legs firm into his shoulders so he opted to continue being somewhat playful, catching the corner of her smalls with his teeth and dragging them down with a level of patience he didn't know he could pull from. He watched her hips rock listlessly from side to side in want at being exposed. "Would have missed that."  
"Would you have?" Her breath had gone heady, it wasn't often she was the one waiting for drawn out foreplay to cease.  
"Hmm." His cheek ran along the thigh he decided had been woefully neglected. She was right, even without his eyes he could smell it, feel it, Anima's patience was burning from her, she was hot to the touch. "Fine where-" he watched as she sat up, hand fumbling a bit in search of his face. "How do you get lost when in one spot?" He ran his cheek a bit further up her thigh, let his tongue search out and taste her want, if she couldn't find him now she was truly a lost cause. _'Mine.'_ It didn't sound possessive in his head as it had any time before, it sounded, relaxed and comforted, appreciative.  
"Geralt?"  
"Hmm?" He let his tongue slide again, reminding her he was here and how, he liked watching her body tense and then unfurl under his actions.  
"What sort of mood are you in?" Even as she was, even though it had been directly promised to her she still asked, still gave him control over what of him mattered most, his actions. "You seem to be enjoying your view and if you promise not to tease me through the next lunar cycle I am inclined to let you-" She was cut off by his tongue again. "What a dangerous man you are Geralt, with skills like that." He was dangerous, everything about him, every muscle is his body was built to be dangerous, yet there she laid, blind and wanting for him, for the part that was a man, the part of him that was playful.  
"I'm in the mood to give you what you asked for Anima." He closed his own eyes and only huffed a bit unsettled as the fabric tied behind his ears.  
"What did I ask for? A lot has slipped my mind since you've found me."  
"Found you." Even without his eyes he could miss her. "Have you." His fingernails dug a bit into her skin but his hearing was impeccable, it wasn't a hiss of pain, it was a small moan of pleasure. "My attention. . . ." He didn't want more words his tounge was fine and happy where it was, though leaving a sentence unfinished was impolite. "That's what you-" She didn't push but her fingers did knot in his hair, her wrist twitched like it wanted to. "You can." He stopped, his breath was heavy and hungry yet he was in a playful mood, he was grinning something stupid. "Go on." He felt her wrist twitch again, considering it. Was she worried she would hurt him? Or cause offense? Part of him thought to ask please, but he wasn't that needy. Yet he must've groaned something close enough to the plead because she answered wonderfuly, she didn't crush yet she dragged with just enough pull, just enough urgency, she wanted him closer, wanted him to stop playing and start trying. Time slowly fell away, the room fell away, everything fell away but her. The fell of her hands in his hair, the smell and taste of her, the sound of his name coming out in breathy climbing to desperate pants, he felt surrounded by her, despite his chin being the only part of him to find purchase on the bed.

"Geralt!" It had taken some doing, not the first time and not the second but in his third atempt time her thighs were twitchy, his mouth had hung open a bit to long, it was a welcome well worn.  
"Again. Little louder for me Anima." The request came from deep in his chest.  
"You are greedy Geralt." She said it with such a cracked and well pleased fondness, like his greed was a gift. If that's what she wanted, he had it, he always had it for her.

"Please." He was at that point, he was needing enough, wanting enough that please just came out in not quite a purr.  
"Geralt!" He wasn't sure his name had as many syllables as she stretched it but his skin was buzzing at the echo of it, his head making room for nothing but the sound.

He hadn't asked before hand, he should have asked before hand because he wanted it now and had not a single word to express it. "Geralt?"  
"Hmm?"  
"Close your eyes."  
"W . . ." He knew why. "I don't want to . . . Just yet." She had been keen on his greed a moment ago, maybe she could tolerate a bit more. His hands found their way back to her ankles spreading them a bit wider as her legs gave room to his broad rising form. When he stood, he didn't get lost, he was able to find where he belonged, a step and a stretch and he was over her. "Anima?" Could he find the words now, could he ask now? He let his nose ride up her neck, felt her hair brush and nearly tickle at his face. "Alright?" Her pulse was fast, perhaps his pounce had spooked her. "I'm here. I've got you." He kissed right at the center of her throat. He was dangerous, a dangerous skilled man but not to her, his teeth set in right at her collar bone.  
"I don't want you to trip." He felt her fingers ride pleasantly soft from the start of his scared spine up to the base of his skull, bunching his tunic along the way. He let out a shudder and then a bit of a snarl into her skin.  
"Trip?" He only then really thought on how very clothed he still was. "Can get out of my pants just fine." He had better balance than most.  
"Can you get to the chair just fine?"  
"Chair?"  
"If I recall correctly, there is a chair in this room. One I'd imagined tying your wrists to Geralt."  
"W. . ." It didn't matter why, he didn't have to ask, she was asking of him and it had any remaing blood in his head float far and south. "I can have both."  
"Well really _I_ would have both, your eyes and your hands." It sounded even better, he was greedy to give. "Only if you think-"  
"Not thinking." He shook his head, as he felt her hand at the knot behind his head.  
"Eyes closed?"  
"Eyes aren't just to scare children, I can dilate them when-"  
"Can you _close_ them Geralt?" She didn't wish to talk witcher tricks, she wanted a man's attention, _his_ attention.  
"Yes." The fabric released and he blinked the room back into view.  
"Will you take mine off?"  
"Now you're just being lazy." He chuckled. Yet with careful fingers he undid her blindfold.  
"You're _letting_ me be lazy." Her palms were at his cheeks, leaning up for a slow all the time in the world kiss.  
"Hmm." They'd been pushing hard all the way into this town, then pushed harder by man and monster alike, she looked right and lazy and _he_ gave that to her. Geralt felt a prideful heat bloom in his chest. "Get nowhere at this rate." His voice sounded annoyed but he could feel a relaxed smirk all his own.  
" _You_ were the one with the detour." She was nudging up his tunic till it was discarded to the floor, her hands never seemed to leave him, swirling and mapping till she had the ties to his trousers, they nor his smalls were long for his skin. Anima still had his tunic on which was adorable as always but adorable and playful were no longer enough, he was a bit impatient in adding it to the discard pile.

He sat down, the odd feel of wood on his bare skin was a bit jarring and it took a moment to settle comfortably. "Sitting isn't exactly conducive to . . ."  
"If you were doing all the work Geralt." She was walking over to him slowly and in the moment he was thankful she'd given him his eyes back. Normally he was over her, cloaking her, engulfing her, he didn't get a decent view of her as often as he liked. When she had the high ground his head was usually tossed back, his mind cooking and a bit foggy. "Geralt I'll catch fire if you stare that hard."  
"Hmm." She still sounded pleased, happy for his greed, yet maybe a bit shy, she wasn't a fan of being open and exposed, yet it colored her wonderfully, her skin was flusher than usual, bright and warm under his gaze. "Wanted my attention." No one could say she didn't have it. She was knelt between his knees, one hand perched on each. "Not . . " His hands gripped hard into ceader as she started stealing his earlier moves, instead of kisses they were sharp little nips at his thighs then his hips, up his middle, along his chest. They were everywhere so much so that he almost didn't notice the pad of her thumb rolling along a nipple, it was such a soft subtle touch, just a nice but half as noticeable as the nips. "All of my attention then." It was a chuckled that fought it's way past his throat. "Marks won't stay you know?" He felt a bit apologetic, there was something he truly enjoyed about leaving a decent bite and seeing it peak past her collar in their travels.  
"Have to apreciate them while they're here is all." Anima had gone all the way up to his neck and was now kissing and lapping at those same places on her way down.  
"Anima." The aged wood in his palms was creaking under the pressure, he did not find sitting still and letting her dote over his flesh an easy endeavor, he wanted to touch, wanted to feel her, wanted to move. He bolted his eyes shut, he didn't want to strike too fast again, make another mistake.  
"Need me to take away the temptation? This is taking long enough as it is, there is not enough time for another detour."  
"Hmm." He still couldn't ask which was a problem. "I trust your judgement." He felt her pause all movements and his eyes worked open, had that been the wrong set of words? Not enough? Her own eyes were wide as if that statement was a matter of question. _'She had made the wrong choice . . . Mortal mistake.'_ He wet his lips and stretched his neck, warming up to the notion of speaking again. "I trust you." This wasn't just a moment for Geralt to empty his head, to burn his energy out so he didn't jump when he needed to wait, this was for her, to know even if her choices didn't always pan out as predicted, she still had his trust. "I'm here." He hadn't noticed how tense his arms were till they released, till he let out a breath, she was wanting this from him and that made it worlds easier.  
"I love you Geralt. Love what you give me." He was rewarded with if he was going to be petty about it, seemed a detour of a long filthy kiss, teasing strokes, but witchers weren't petty so he just enjoyed the moment. He didn't even huff when the fabric looped and knotted round his left wrist, and only on instinct alone did his fingers on his dominant hand twitch as she took his right. He was greedy to give and she was quick to take, once his hands were bound her mouth was on him, he nearly bucked out of the seat at the quick turn of tides, it took minutes on minutes for his breath to fill his lungs properly.  
"Anima." It was a sight, her eyes blinking up at his a bit teary from her efforts, she was pausing, giving him a chance for words even though they both knew damn well there was nothing but his heartbeat pumping through his head. She smiled as if he'd found some sonnet for her and went back to moving, it was fluid, confident and constant and Geralt could do nothing but groan and arch his spine to meet her. _'Why did I agree to this?'_ That question always hit at some point when they throws went anywhere remotely taboo but that was always a fleeting thought, the last practical thought of a practical man. "Anima I'll . . ." He had nothing to starve off release, it was coming, he was coming and she seemed in no way keen to stop it, still pleased with his greed. "Ani . . .ah . . " She had let the stimulation crest out of him but there was no rest, she was building it back up again in short order. "I want . . ." She peeled off of him slow and purposefull, resting her cheek against his thigh.  
"What do you want Geralt?" He could have it, whatever he wanted he could have.  
"More." It was a bit of a confused word, it was a stupid word the more Geralt tried to think about it. "I want. . ."  
"More. So you said. I like you greedy Geralt." It was so sweet, too sweet, Geralt turned a bit away from her fond stare. Which had him at odds, all she asked for was his attention but it was a bit too much, they'd been at this for a bit too long.  
"Both?" There was an out, he had an out.  
"Both, more, everything Geralt. You've been patient as anything." She brushed his hair back before leaning in to kiss him. It was too sweet but he loved her words, wanted more, wanted her louder. With a loose knot it was gone, the need to hold her eyes, he could just enjoy the sound of her.

He could tell by the positioning of her palms on his arms that her back was to him which was odd, yet as he felt her sink onto him he could give two fucks about odd. _'Clever little shaddow.'_ He had little to no leverage to give her sat as he was, she found a way, thought of a solution. She was pushing herself up off his arms and letting that extra lift and gravity, pull her her back down in weighted thrusts at whatever angels got the best groans out of the witcher. _'Girl loves her hights.'_ A thought hit him, a want hit him, not for now, he had everything wanted now, a want for later. "Come . . ." He had to really grunt the words past. "Winter . . . The mountain."  
"You always take me to the mountains in winter Geralt." She tried to sound casual, but casual had gone the way of adorable and playful, lust had drenched the edges of all their words.  
"Want you to have the high ground."  
"You want me to fuck you ontop of a mountain." There wasn't a question there, she was breathing too hard for inflection.  
"Yes."  
"It will be awful cold up there Geralt."  
"Will keep you warm. Promise." He wanted to give more, beyond the moment, he wanted to give her tomorrow and the next day. He blindly jutted his head that had been lulling back forward, letting his chin find the crook of her neck, the only hold he had available.  
"I do not . . .Geralt!" He felt her begin to tighten and tire above him, she was close, perhaps the idea had gotten her closer, perhaps being held had her right on the cusp.  
"Again."  
"Geralt!" She was close, he was closer, the time to tip was on them.  
"My . . . Anima I want a hand back." Her fingers were less fluid than her hips, it was a clawing panicked unravel of silk.  
"You can . . . Geralt . . . I can . . ." She was trying to offer to stop, for a break, to ask of his well being, he didn't want any of those things.  
"I've got you." It was a growl pure and simple as his arm locked her tight pressed against his chest. "Can move my feet right?"  
"What? Geralt I love you but . . . The fuck do you plan on doing with . . ."  
"I've got you." She heard it that time, it was a warning a reassurance but of what?  
"Geralt the fuck are you on ab-" Symmetrical strikes, he was quite pleased with himself, both front legs of the chair gave way under the crushing blows of his heels. "Ahhh!" They were falling forward, he was falling blind but he could be agile beyond reason if given the chance to move. His knees would hate him in the morning but Anima was loving him now and that was all that mattered. Her back still glued to his chest he didn't stutter or stall, he continued to thrust deeper and fuller and with all his attention. "Geralt you mad man!" She sounded so pleased, shouting right into the floorboards infront of her face. "My Vildkarl!" She was a burning hot coal right at his chest. Geralt grinned as he bit into her shoulder. "Geralt!" The bits of chair still clung to his wrist clattered but his focus was squarely on her as release took them both. "Here." He panted into her skin. "I've got you." They laid out on the floor like some well spent idiots for a moment, Geralt's full weight, giving her that assurance that she wouldn't drift, wouldn't get lost, could just stay in that headspace a few moments longer.  
"Is that the first time we've broken furniture?" Anima had to reach back and tap at him to get him to roll over.  
"Define furniture." He was pretty sure they'd knocked over a vase, a statue and a full set of kaedweni armor when balance and grace had been good and lost to alcohol and low patience when they had been in the kings court at Aedirn.  
"Close your easily dilate . . .able eyes for me love?" It wasn't too much, too sweet, it was calm, he was calm.  
"Hmm." The blindfold had been hanging on for dear life but it had overstaid it's welcome. She undid his wrist, pulling it to her lips kissing the smallest hint of fabric burn away. "Did that . . . I should have . . ." Anima liked to be in control of her world, surprises did not thrill her, perhaps he shouldn't have robbed it from her in the last moment.  
"You gave me exactly what I asked for Geralt." She began tugging him over to the bed.  
"You did not ask for . . ." He'd broken a chair and lunged forward rutting into her like a man possessed.  
"I asked for your attention, and there's no greater sign that you have a witcher's attention than having him plan and plot a flawless . . ."  
"Attack?"  
"Is that how you attack beasts Geralt? No wonder every monster within sniffing distance has needed you to see to them." She nestled in comfortably at his chest.  
"Hmm." He kissed the top of her head then let out a hearty yawn. "We should make an early start of the morning." Whatever worry he had melted as she began drawing shapes into his skin.  
"Opposed to your cavalier wake up whenever mantra any other day?" She was yawning, fading, she'd be asleep soon.  
"Before something else finds this town."  
"You mean before we have to explain that chair?"  
"Thank you Anima I needed . . ." What had he gained outside of release from that? His head was a little less heavy, his energy had been burned down to the wick in a way that wasn't painful. He did not have the words for that.  
"We both did." Anima nodded or nuzzled he couldn't quite tell.  
"Early morning. Sleep." He kissed her head again. Sleep was warm and heavy and Geralt even pulled the blanket over his face so the first rays of sun didn't bid him to move.

"Witcher!" He regretted not leaving with dawn as someone joined him in the stable.  
 _'What now? Dragons? Have werewolves taken over the apothecary?'_ Though when he turned around he found a small kernel of patience. _'Severi.'_ He had wanted to speak with this man. "I am sorry . . . There weren't any . . . I looked for any survivors and they. . . had all perished." Geralt found breaking this news far too easy, he had done it far too many times before. "I brought any remaining-"  
"I am sorry too, that the outcome wasn't different." The man did have the posture of someone mid mourn. "Though I wanted to thank you for what you did."  
"The ealdorman already paid me for the work." This town had built up a tab beyond what the witcher had originally agreed upon but he didn't squeeze them for all they were worth.  
"What I wish to thank you for no coin can cover."  
"Haven't heard of such a thing." Geralt leaned against the wall a bit puzzled, any service he provided could very easily be converted to currency.  
"I'd lost faith but you restored it."  
"I restored it?" They had summoned the dead, beheaded a Yaksha, taken down prayers like lunch orders and commissioned their cemetery be upturned, he didn't think he was forgetting anything.  
"I prayed for the gods for someone to save us and then in my darkest hour as I stumble lost I find your woman, find you and your friend. Do you believe that's just luck? Destiny perhaps?"  
"I . . ." He believed they had been in that direction because it was the shortest path to gullet, they stopped because they needed something to eat. That's what he believed, no higher voice was calling them there. "Glad we could help." What Geralt believed helped him keep track of days that blended together, whatever Severi believed to help him through his was not the witcher's concern. "Though . . . Next time just hang a notice. I respond to those quicker."  
"Ow!" Anima could be loud outside of throws.  
"You heartless harlot! I cannot belive you. . .Ow! At an injured man Anima? I am wounded!" There was a thud of something being thrown back and forth on the otherside of the stables.  
"That's my cue Severi. In the kindest way it can be taken, I hope you don't need to see me again." Geralt began pulling Roach out into whatever shenanigans his companions had started.  
"Safe travels witcher."

"Why should I carry it?" Anima was staring at Jaskier's belongings that lay squarely between her and the bard.  
"What's all this about?" Geralt was mounting Roach, nicking her forward.  
"I was shot! Or perhaps you two have forgotten! I do not have reinforced skin, or the ability to conk men out with a stare. I'm soft squishy and irresistable! This could scar or lock up, one does not shrug off being shot! I need full range of motion to both my shoulders to-" Jaskier paused first purely for air but then to cringe as he watched Geralt let the guilt find it's way home. "I already said I don't blame you and that I've had enough of that shade of scowl Geralt!" Jaskier's sling was flapping like a cape infront of a bull.  
"Should heal fine, was a clean wound." Geralt did feel guilt, no amount of chair breaking sex or scolds against it would keep that feeling from coming to a man built to protect _. 'Squishy'_ it hadn't been poetic but it was accurate. Here he was armored and mutated to take on a small army, it should never be Jaskier's skin over Geralt's that's not the way it should work.  
"Clean . . . I don't care if it was a bolt made of chocolate shot from a bow made of turtle dove tears. I was shot, I do not want guilt I'm looking for a little sympathy here!" Jaskier shot a cranky glare between his two companions.  
"If you promise to never . . .this goes for the both of you." Anima was plenty squishy herseld. "Get in between me and . . ." He didn't have time to list everything they shouldn't wedge themselves between, the path to kaer morhen would snow over before he got half way through. "Something meant for me . . . Weapon, beast . . . Angry mob." A few examples was fine enough. "I will show you the minimal amount of sympathy I have." Geralt held out his hand, he'd carry the bard's ever growing collection of necessities. He watched Jaskier try every emotion known to man and a few improvised ones across his face before spinning on his heels and turning to Anima.  
"Counter offer? It's in there I know it. You have far more sympathy to go around. What with emotions being your whole deal." He paused for the needed air quotes. "You likely would be better equipped for it." He lifted up his bag and held it out to Anima.  
"I'm better at emotions." She took the strap and shucked it over her shoulder and started walking. "Better than both of you." She added to make sure this wasn't taken as a witcher don't feel tangent.  
"I wouldn't go that far." Jaskier scoffed looking over at Geralt who just shrugged.  
"Not my race to win."  
"I would." Anima was near at the edge of town. "Sympathy, selflessness. Walk talk and emote. There's nothing I can't feel!" She leaned a bit cocky at the sign post. She'd gotten too comfortable with the emotions she was best at but she could feel anything, the choice was hers and she more often than not made decent ones.  
"How about humble." Jaskier didn't know how to mutter under his breath so he said it loud proud and in her face as he stopped towards her.  
"Jaskier I meant it. Don't-" Geralt had been left in the dust.  
"Too steep a price Geralt. You can't always hog the hero role! Leave some praise and accolades for the rest of us."  
"Hmm." Not always, he could try to protect them at all times, he'd try, every day into every night, while they slept but he was not infallible, he would sometimes be too slow to curtail Jaskier's recklessness or too fast and strike a bit early. Forgiveness would not come from the gods, he'd huff over it when coming from those he swore to protect, he'd have to grant it to himself. He couldn't change his stripes, guilt would always come, he could change his stride, move though it, let his path allow for forgiveness to come as well.  
"Tip for you Jaskier?" Anima spoke again as the town started to disappear behind them.  
"What's that?"  
"I do have sympathy for the fact you were shot."  
"How kind of you."  
"Can't carry your wares but could find the muscle dexterity to please Salde _and_ Arda?"  
"They were sympathetic, gentle, they were lovely girls Anima they-"  
"The fucked you dead tired and you slept on your bad shoulder, woke up hurting."  
"That may have happened."  
"Take good care of that squishy self of yours. People tend to be far less sympathetic to the woe of satisfying all night threesomes. Your shoulder Geralt's knees, my neck." Anima ran fingers along marks that staid, that made Geralt smirk. "Even I only have so much sympathy for us well sexed lot." It had been a good night for all of them.  
"That's why I didn't bring it up. I was shot in the shoulder not through the ears. Fine give it-"  
"I said people. I'm no person I'm a god damn paragon and I want you to heal up right from shootings, sex. . . Rouge hornets."  
"I cannot help that I am attractive to man woman and beast."  
"Can you try? Atleast till the blue mountains?" Geralt gave a heavy sigh as he rode up ahead and beyond them.  
"Good luck, well wishes, thoughts and prayers should get us to Gullet." Jaskier shrugged with his good shoulder.  
"Hmm." To each their own, whatever worked, whatever kept them safe and moving, Geralt had no faith but hook crook and anything in between, he'd utilize it all to get his family home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for following my self discovery that I can write nothing short and sweet it all has to be long angsty and talkative, not my favorite outing. Sure I'll be posting again shortly, suggestions always welcome come shout at me on [tumblr](https://liverose.tumblr.com/)


End file.
